WIZARDS DUEL--SIXTH YEAR
by monkeymouse
Summary: "Tall orders are easy," Dumbledore smiled; "the impossible takes an extra day or two."
1. The Slow Train

WIZARDS DUEL: SIXTH YEAR  
  
by Patrick Drazen  
  
a/k/a monkeymouse  
  
3.1 The Slow Train  
  
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it…]  
  
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was very different this year. There was still shouting and running, laughter and shoving, but it was all subdued, quieter. A very large number of students and parents carried a special edition of the Daily Prophet, which was printed that day with a thick black border. From three feet away Harry could read the bold headline: Student Killed in Bomb Blast. He couldn't bring himself to look at the front-page picture.  
  
He also noticed people would glance at him, recognize him, then turn away and find business elsewhere. He wondered what the article said about him and Cho, then decided he didn't want to know. In any case, everyone was giving him a wide berth. The way he felt, he was grateful.  
  
He'd had no sleep in the past twenty-four hours. Arthur and Molly Weasley finally had to pull him away from Granny Li; he clung to her lap as if she was the last chance that Cho might still be alive. They got him back to Diagon Alley, to the Leaky Cauldron, where Arthur Weasley had a quick, hushed conversation with Tom. Meanwhile, Harry sat by the hearth in the dining room, staring at the table where he and Cho had had breakfast the day before. If anyone else came into the room, he didn't notice.  
  
He didn't react to anyone or anything until Tom tapped him on the shoulder. "Ye'll miss yer train, Mister Potter." Harry started up the stairs to pack, but saw that his trunk was already by the desk, with Hedwig in her cage on top. "I hope ye don't mind; I took the liberty o' packin' ye up. I also talked to Gringott's; yer account's been taken care of. An' … we're all sorry fer yer loss."  
  
Harry knew Tom meant well, and thanked him, but the last thing he wanted to hear–from anyone–was how sorry they were for his loss. All it did was rip the wound in his heart open again, forcing it to bleed again. Was this how Cho felt when Cedric died and her housemates and friends rushed to sympathize with her for her loss? Did she feel then the way he felt now–like screaming, or throwing something, or grabbing a broom–anyone's broom–and flying until he ran out of land and sky…  
  
He found that the last compartment of the last car in the train was empty, so he dragged his trunk in there and waited. People passed by, looked in, and kept walking. Draco Malfoy, as usual backed up by Crabbe and Goyle, opened the door, but before Draco could say anything, Harry pulled out his wand. He didn't point it at them, he didn't even look at them; he simply said, "Just letting you know; I'm past caring about anything." Draco thought better of saying a word, and withdrew.  
  
A few minutes later Hermione entered, alone. Her robes were new–not the ones she'd worn a few days earlier in the Leaky Cauldron. Also new was the Prefect badge pinned to her robes. She sat down on the seat opposite Harry, realized she was still holding a copy of the Daily Prophet, and hurriedly threw it to the other end of the seat. If she had something to say when she entered the compartment, she couldn't seem to remember it now.  
  
"I just, that is, I wanted to see if you were…"  
  
"Hermione," Harry said, in a low and tired voice, "I know you mean well, but I want to be alone right now."  
  
"Maybe that's not such a good idea, though. Come sit with us."  
  
"Trust me, there's nothing you can do."  
  
"Perhaps I shouldn't say this…"  
  
"Then don't."  
  
"Why are you making this difficult? I'm trying to say I know what you're feeling."  
  
Harry's eyes started to flare up again. "How do you know? What's death ever done to you?"  
  
"Oh, nothing, I suppose, compared to you. But then it's not really about death, is it? Just that it didn't give you time to get ready for it. Bang, and your parents are gone; Bang and your girlfriend is gone. I have to watch it coming, spend weeks and months waiting for it…" Hermione suddenly realized that she's said far more than she intended, quickly stood and turned toward the compartment door.  
  
Harry jumped up, barring the door with his body. "So you've got your own troubles?"  
  
"Just let me go."  
  
"No. You started to tell me something. So finish it."  
  
"I swear I'll scream!"  
  
"Then scream. I can tell you want to. But it's nothing to do with me, is it?"  
  
Hermione turned away from the door, falling back onto a seat. Harry sat beside her, putting a hand on hers without even thinking about it. When she spoke, he could barely hear her:  
  
"I…I met the Weasleys at St. Barts. They heard about you and Cho and got there as quick as they could. But I was already there, you see.  
  
"After all these years, daddy has gotten quite used to owl posting. Mummy hasn't taken to it; I don't know why. Anyway, daddy sent an owl last spring just before the final exams. Mummy was feeling rather weak, had to take a few days away from the practice. You know they're both dentists, and they share the same… Yes, I suppose you do know."  
  
Harry didn't like Hermione's lack of focus. It was very unlike her.  
  
"The owl. The owl said. They wanted to put mummy in hospital back in June. She put her foot down. Said, 'I'm not going anywhere this summer unless it's with my family.' So they decided mummy wasn't too bad off. We were supposed to go for a month on the Mediterranean; she was the one who said, "Let's make it two'. Like she wanted to stand up to it, not let it stop..." Hermione couldn't go on; she fell silent.  
  
He squeezed her hand. "Is it very bad?"  
  
"They said she had a low-level Stage I endometrial carcinoma. It's a fancy way of saying cancer of the uterus." Hermione delivered this news soberly, calmly, holding herself together by sheer will.  
  
Harry was surprised for a moment that she didn't seem upset; he thought that, in her place, he'd be in hysterics. But then he was surprised that he was surprised; this was Hermione, after all. "Well, can't they … cut it out or something?"  
  
"That's not it. I mean, yes, they can go in and cut out her womb. It's not as if my parents wanted me to have a younger brother anyway. And that's why we were at St. Barts; checking mummy in. The surgery will be in a few days. But with this kind of cancer, even if it's low-level, even if it hasn't spread to the rest of the body, it's fifty-fifty odds that she'll live longer than five years…  
  
"Harry, I know I'm not the most fun person to be around. I've never been spontaneous; I've never had much imagination. Maybe that has something to do with why I took off all my clothes in front of you and Ron. It's funny: when I say it like that, I can't imagine ever doing it, but it felt almost normal at the time. But at that moment, I think I needed to go a little mad, or else fall apart altogether."  
  
"Well, if you'd had that kind of summer..."  
  
"But that's it, Harry; we did have that kind of summer. I think part of going without clothes in Diagon Alley was that I didn't want to admit the possibility of mummy not ever seeing another summer..."  
  
"Listen, Hermione, I'm sorry I was short with you. When you said you knew what I was feeling; I guess you were right. Before you found me in the chapel the other day, I think I actually went mad for a bit."  
  
Harry had been unconsciously squeezing Hermione's hand through this conversation. Now she didn't say anything; she simply pulled her hand away and squeezed Harry's hand in turn. They sat together silently for a minute.  
  
Then the bell rang; the train was ready to leave. Hermione stood up, consciously straightening her robes and her Prefect badge, and adjusting the emotions off of her face as well. "I'd better look in on Ron and Ginny. Please don't tell Ron about the cancer. Let me do that in my own time." Harry nodded. "And do try to come sit with us, Harry. It just feels wrong without you."  
  
"Maybe later. Right now, I don't think I could stand the looks, the questions."  
  
"I mean it, Harry. At Hogwarts, too, if you want to talk about anything, day or night…"  
  
Harry half-smiled. "Accio Hermione?"  
  
She nodded, smiling, and left.  
  
The train gave a shudder and started to roll. He settled in for the hours- long journey north to Hogwarts. As he did so, he noticed that Hermione had left her copy of the Daily Prophet on the opposite seat. It was turned to the back, where there was usually nothing but advertising, so Harry thought it was safe to look. Most of the back page was taken up with a picture. The caption:  
  
"LAST KNOWN PHOTO OF VICTIM  
  
This photo of Club MoshiMoshi was taken by its manager Zafar Ajneeri only minutes before the bombing. Miss Cho Chang, who died of injuries resulting from the blast, is seen dancing with Hogwarts student Harry Potter. A reliable source indicates that the two were to become engaged before the tragedy occurred."  
  
There they were, Harry Potter and Cho Chang, young and healthy and in each other's arms, dancing forever to music that nobody else could hear…  
  
"HARRY!" Hermione's voice came from the corridor. "I'm so sorry! I forgot my..." She pulled open the door, and saw Harry looking at the picture on the back. "Oh, Harry, I..."  
  
She stopped when she saw that Harry had not fallen apart. He was looking at the picture in a detached, almost clinical, manner, the way she'd seen her parents examine the x-ray of a jaw. "Did you ever notice," he said, quite matter of factly, "that nobody likes the way their own pictures turn out? You look at yourself and say, 'Nah, that's not me; must be someone else; I certainly don't look like that.'"  
  
"Are you...all right?"  
  
"Of course; fine. Just thinking about the year ahead."  
  
There was nothing else for Hermione to say, so she took the paper and left Harry alone. He stayed there for about an hour, when he realized that, as much as he didn't want to be bothered by anyone, he didn't really want to be alone either. He opened his trunk, found the Cloak of Invisibility and put it on for the first time in a long time. He told himself he just wanted to explore the train unbothered for a bit.  
  
He immediately recognized the voice in one compartment as Ginny Weasley: "It HAD to be the Dark Lord!"  
  
"But there's no proof, is there?" Ron replied. "All the Ministry knows is that some Muggle did it."  
  
"And how do you know what they know?"  
  
"Because of stupid old Pig there." Ron was talking about the little owl Pigwidgeon. "Never knows where to deliver the mail. Dad's written letters to Dumbledore, and I end up getting them."  
  
"Then I'd stop calling Pig stupid, if I were you," Hermione interrupted. "He just might stop giving you all that special mail."  
  
"Hermione," Ginny asked, "do the Muggles really hate us that much? I mean, your parents are nice and all, but…"  
  
There was silence, and a deep sigh. "I've heard them talk about witches and wizards and magic all my life, Ginny, even before anyone knew I was a witch. And yes, some of them might as well be working for the Dark Lord. They accuse us of every terrible thing that's ever happened; they burn books about us that suggest we might be nice, or even that we might be human; and some of the things they say about us… Ron, I've made my mind up. I'm getting out of the Auror courses and going back to Muggle Studies."  
  
"After what you just said?!"  
  
"Especially after that. Somebody's got to tell them the truth, and I think I can do it in their own language. Somebody has to try, anyway." After a moment, in a softer voice: "It's not much of a monument to Cho, but it's the best I can do."  
  
Good for you, Harry thought.  
  
A few cars down Harry found one compartment filled to overflowing. Most of the Quidditch players, from most of the Houses, were there. At the moment, they were cornering Lee Jordan:  
  
"Face it, Lee, you totally lost it!"  
  
"Yeah, well, can you blame me?"  
  
"That was some move; still never seen anything like it."  
  
"And you never will again."  
  
"I'm just lucky nobody from the WWN was there. I auditioned for them this summer, you know."  
  
"Did they say anything?"  
  
"Just the usual about 'come back when you're out of school'. But how much school do I really need to announce Quidditch matches? It's not like Hogwarts will teach it anytime soon."  
  
"But if they do, we can all practice saying…"  
  
As if they'd rehearsed it, everyone in the compartment shouted at the top of their voice:  
  
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!"  
  
They all laughed, and, as the laughter died down, Lee spoke up: "She was a fine little Seeker, though. Could have been one of the great ones."  
  
There were a few grunts and murmurs of agreement. Harry moved on to another compartment.  
  
In the next car he saw Crabbe and Goyle standing about in the corridor, so Harry felt pretty sure he knew who was inside that compartment. Maybe Draco wanted some time alone with Pansy Parkinson. That was an image he didn't want in his head: two of Slytherin's foulest students snogging. He was about to move on when Pansy's voice cut right through the door: "You promised! You promised me that nothing would go wrong!"  
  
"I only told you what father told me," Draco replied. "I didn't promise anything."  
  
"Well, I can promise you something, Draco Malfoy. I'm only interested in being on the winning side. And if it's not going to be the Death-Eaters…"  
  
"Keep your voice down," Draco hissed, "and take it easy. We had some setbacks this year, but that's over and done. We've got a new source of information. We won't be taken by surprise any more; from now on, we do the surprising."  
  
"You haven't had any luck so far. Hogsmeade was a failure, Fudge was a failure…"  
  
"Don't lecture me, Pansy; it's not an attractive trait."  
  
"…not even that hag in Privet Drive!"  
  
Privet Drive?! Was there a witch living near the Dursleys all these years? Why hadn't she said anything to Harry??  
  
"There's one consolation," Draco went on. "We get the spectacle of Pining Potter, moping around Hogwarts and completely off his game."  
  
"I'm not talking about Quidditch."  
  
"Neither am I. He's one less distraction for the Death-Eaters to worry about. Say what you will about the Potter, Dumbledore considers him as more than just a pawn in this chess game. Losing his little fortune cookie should distract him, and limit Dumbledore's options considerably. He'll be useless for, maybe, the rest of the term."  
  
"Do you think the Dark Lord can pull it off by Christmas?"  
  
"Either that, or he'll at least be strong enough that Dumbledore and Potter combined can't stand up to him. The plan is back on track."  
  
Oh, is it now? Harry thought. Draco wasn't going to see him moping about Hogwarts; he wouldn't give Malfoy the satisfaction. Harry strode down the corridor to the compartment where Ron and Hermione and the others were. He could hear through the door; they were laughing about something, and Harry, with his hand on the door of the compartment, froze. Not yet, I can't have a party with them yet. It's too soon.  
  
He went back to his compartment at the end of the train, still empty except for Hedwig. He was there three hours into the journey when his stomach started to growl. He tried to ignore it, couldn't, opened his trunk, took out the sausage and knife Ron had sent him. He was just about to cut into it when he remembered; he'd saved it all this time to be able to share it with his friends. He tossed everything back into the trunk.  
  
Just then, there was a light tapping at the compartment door. Nobody came in, and after a minute Harry opened the door. The corridor was empty, but in front of the door was a paper bag. The hag who pushed the snack cart had left a few things in the bag for him.  
  
This made Harry feel even worse. He didn't have the chance to thank her, and he still didn't want to be with Ron or Hermione or any of the others. He simply sat and looked at the bag. Minutes later, he reached in, took out a Chocolate Frog, unwrapped it and took a bite. It tasted as bitter as the vinegar-flavored Bertie Botts Bean he'd had earlier in the year, studying for finals with Ron…  
  
He kept thinking about Ron and Hermione and the others in a compartment further up the train. He realized that he was actually trying not to think about Cho—but then, he'd thought of nothing else between the bombing and getting on the Hogwarts Express.  
  
But overhearing Draco gave Harry something new to think about. Voldemort was still out there somewhere; the Death-Eaters were out there, trying to bring the Dark Lord back to his old power. And they knew—Draco had admitted as much—that Harry Potter stood in their way.  
  
And maybe it was his sleepless state, and maybe it was because of all that had happened, but he stared at the opposite seat, and thought about the Dark Lord, and he stared and he thought … until Harry Potter had what could only be called a vision. An image came to his mind of Cho Chang; not as he had last seen her in hospital, but standing, smiling, in the center of an empty Quidditch stadium. Then, just behind her, there suddenly appeared his parents. Others started appearing behind them: Cedric Diggory, killed on Voldemort's orders; Moaning Myrtle, who was killed when the Dark Lord was still a Hogwarts student named Tom Marvolo Riddle; dozens of other people—some dressed in wizarding robes, some of them Muggles—who had all been killed during Voldemort's first rise to power; and as Harry watched, the crowd of people grew and grew until it threatened to overflow the stadium…  
  
And he came out of his trance. He came out of it with one clear idea in his head: that he, Harry James Potter, stood between Voldemort and thousands of new deaths. His birth, his education at Hogwarts—everything in his life led him to this realization. That was all he had to do; nothing else mattered. If he succeeded, tens of thousands of deaths could be averted. If he failed…then at least he'd join Cho in the Great Mystery beyond life. But he would have tried.  
  
But how? What was there to try? He'd faced Voldemort before; a wizard who'd accumulated power for decades, who knew spells Harry didn't even realize were out there. And he was strong—fueled by greed and contempt and anger. Could Harry stand up to all that?  
  
Then he realized: he HAD stood up to all that. He had been tortured by Voldemort in the churchyard where Voldemort had been reborn. Harry had been tortured, yet had survived. He and Cho actually fought off three Death-Eaters in the skies over Hogsmeade.  
  
He closed his eyes, remembering –savoring—that victory with Cho over the Death-Eaters. And maybe he slept and dreamed, or maybe he had another vision. Again, Cho stood alone on a Quidditch field, smiling at Harry. But standing with her now was Albus Dumbledore, Rubeus Hagrid, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Hermione Granger, the entire Weasley clan…Hogwarts classmates, people he'd met only for a moment in Diagon Alley or even in the Muggle world; on and on, with the stadium again filling to overflowing…  
  
And as he came to himself he knew. He knew that, regardless of the odds, he was not alone. Regardless of the size and strength of the enemy, he could match it—with the help of his friends.  
  
But how? What was there to do? And why did both visions start with Cho Chang, forever lost to him?  
  
Harry was sunk so deep in thought that he barely noticed when the train came to Hogsmeade. By now things seemed almost normal again, as students scrambled off the train; the first years following Hagrid to the boats, the rest piling into carriages.  
  
Harry walked up to Hagrid, who was about to step into one of the boats himself. "There ye are, Harry. Erm, I guess yeh know what I wants to tell yeh…"  
  
"Hagrid", Harry interrupted, "can I skip the carriage and just walk to the castle?"  
  
Hagrid's brow furrowed. He laid a large hand on Harry's shoulder and led him away from the others.  
  
"Known yeh a long time, Harry," he said; "first saw yeh as a babe in my arms, right after, well, that happened. An' I think I'm within my rights ter say this. Yeh wants ter be alone now; I unnerstan' that. But if yeh go walkin' down that road by yersel' an' all the others' passin' by in the carriages, ye'll jus' be makin' a bigger spectacle o' yersel'. If that's what yeh wants ter do, then do it. But ye're back among friends here; don' fergit that."  
  
Harry looked up into the huge man's face, seeing Hagrid–for the first time–as a dark and scruffy version of Father Christmas. He smiled and took one of Hagrid's hands in both of his. "Thanks," he said, barely above a whisper. "Can I still get on a carriage, then?"  
  
"Been holdin' 'em fer yeh," Hagrid beamed. Without another word he turned back toward the boats. Harry looked along the line of coaches; one stood with its door open. He walked to it, and there they all were: Ron, Ginny, Hermione, and Neville Longbottom who—like Hermione—wore the badge of a Prefect on his robes.. As he climbed in, Harry tried to stammer out some sort of apology.  
  
Ron cut him off. "You don't have to say anything."  
  
And Harry didn't, throughout the drive to Hogwarts, or in the Great Hall, or during the Sorting Ceremony.  
  
At dinner that evening, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore rose: "It gives me only the smallest consolation to announce the suspension of classes for the next twenty-four hours, so that you may contemplate, in your own ways, the life and death of Miss Cho Chang. Be assured that all of us here at the Head Table will do the same."  
  
But on this night, twenty-four hours after her death, Harry Potter wasn't thinking about Cho's life or death. He had set his mind on Lord Voldemort, on the Death-Eaters, and how to stop them for all time.  
  
…to be continued… 


	2. Decisions

WIZARDS DUEL: SIXTH YEAR  
  
by Patrick Drazen  
  
a/k/a monkeymouse  
  
3.2 Decisions  
  
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it…]  
  
Nobody at Hogwarts was supposed to know where any of the Houses were, but most of the older students certainly had a good idea. As long as the passwords were secure, the Houses were considered secure. By sunset of the following day, however, the location of the entrance to Ravenclaw House could be easily guessed: strange items appeared on the floor in front of a certain tapestry. They ranged from statues of eagles to miniature brooms and Golden Snitches, flowers and photographs. Filch grumbled a bit to himself, but didn't try to clean any of it up.  
  
That evening at dinner, Dumbledore had another announcement: "It took the Board of Governors quite a while to settle the matter, but I would like to assure those of you who have been wondering, that this year's Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts...stands before you now."  
  
There was one moment of stunned silence; then the kind of cheering and stomping and table-pounding not often heard outside a Quidditch match (except from the Slytherins, of course). Harry and the Gryffindor table were loudest of all. Ron tapped Harry on the shoulder in the middle of the cheering and pointed out Snape at the head table. He was politely joining in the applause, but they could tell his mood was even worse than usual.  
  
After dinner, Harry did something he had been dreading. He went to the school broom shed. He got out his Firebolt, and just stood in the hall, holding the broom. He stood there for a good five minutes, not moving an inch, until he sighed, put the broom back in the shed, and went up to his dormitory. He gave the portrait of the Fat Lady the password–"dust ruffle"–and went up to his dormitory room, throwing himself onto his bed.  
  
A few minutes later, Ron came in, pulling one stack of books out of his bag and replacing it with another. "Back two days and it's madness already," Ron complained as he juggled the piles of books. "Binns wants an essay for History, Idylwyld wants an essay for Muggle Studies, and now Sinistra wants twelve inches by Monday. Why don't they just take me down to the dungeon and chop my head off now?"  
  
"Ron?"  
  
"Yeah, what?"  
  
"I've decided something. The House won't like it, and that includes you, but I wanted you to be first to know."  
  
"What, then?"  
  
"I'm … not playing Quidditch this year. Someone else can be Seeker."  
  
"You're joking!"  
  
"Do you see me laughing?"  
  
"Harry, please! You're the best Seeker at Hogwarts! We can't win the Cup without you!"  
  
"Ron, believe me, I can't do it. I stood downstairs with the Firebolt in my hand just now, and I felt nothing. Understand? Nothing! I thought I'd at least want to feel like flying again, the way I used to, but I don't. I just feel … nothing. Dead."  
  
"Like Cho, you mean?"  
  
Harry turned angrily to Ron. "What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"It means, this is how you're punishing yourself for Cho being dead."  
  
Harry jumped at Ron, but Ron—the youngest of six brothers and familiar with rough-housing—neatly side-stepped Harry. He ended up falling onto Ron's bed, but before Harry could move Ron sat down on his back.  
  
"Get off!"  
  
"Guess I hit a nerve just then. Harry, you're just going through what Cho went through after Cedric died; it's the same thing. You think it's wrong to fly now because Cho was part of your flying."  
  
Harry tried to force Ron off his back, but Ron had him pinned now and wouldn't give.  
  
"Harry, listen to me. This is nothing against you or Cho. I'm not an idiot, you know; I know what you meant to each other. But you were a great Seeker before you even met her. There's nothing wrong with going back to Quidditch now."  
  
Harry knew that, at one level, Ron was right. But he couldn't change the fact that the desire to fly just wasn't there. Maybe it would come back—but what if it didn't?  
  
Harry had calmed down, so Ron slid off of him. "Look, it's too soon anyway. I mean, the first game is still two months away. You could always change your mind, you know. Just give yourself some time."  
  
Harry sat up. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Sorry, Ron."  
  
To himself, though, he resolved to wait only until the team meeting in a week. He'd formally give up Quidditch then.  
  
Neville came into the dormitory. "How are you doing, Harry?"  
  
"I'll be all right. How was your vacation in Saint Ives?"  
  
"What?" Neville was taking off his robes, and almost tripped over them when Harry asked. "Oh, that. Well, you know, nothing ever changes. Still a nice visit, though."  
  
"That's good."  
  
Ron piped up: "So, how are you two getting on, then?"  
  
Neville blushed. Harry didn't know what "you two" Ron meant, and didn't feel like asking just then. He simply drew the curtains on his bed.  
  
* *  
  
The next morning Harry started putting his plan against Lord Voldemort into action. He went up to the Owlery and used a school owl before breakfast to send a note to Draco Malfoy:  
  
"Meet me in McGonagall's Transfiguration classroom during lunch. If you don't, I start talking about some Death-Eaters by name. Potter"  
  
At half past twelve, Draco showed up, flanked, as usual, by Crabbe and Goyle. "The food was a bore," Draco drawled lazily, "so this had better be amusing."  
  
"Oh, it is," Harry said. "I near laughed myself sick to see that your father is a Death-Eater. And yours, Crabbe. And yours, Goyle. And Walden McNair."  
  
Draco's perpetual smirk faded a bit while Harry was naming names, but only for a moment. "You know, Potter, I think all that Boy Who Lived talk has finally turned your brain. You honestly think you can accuse Walden McNair, or anyone else, of being a Death-Eater? At best they'd just put it down to a schoolboy prank; at worst, it's slander."  
  
"Sorry, Draco, but I didn't say I would publicly accuse anyone of anything. I was thinking more along the lines of a nice little chat with Amos Diggory."  
  
Harry saw it; fear came into Draco's eyes, try as he might not to show it. The Diggorys were a wizarding family just as old and just as pureblood as the Malfoys, but Amos had not gone over to the Dark Lord. Furthermore, since the Tri-Wizard Tournament, he was the father of the martyred Cedric Diggory, and he put in many extra hours looking for signs of the Death- Eaters. He'd become relentless in searching them out, and had actually arrested several in recent months, slowing Voldemort's plan even further. Plus, he and McNair both worked in the Magical Creatures division of the Ministry. It would be much harder to question his credibility if Amos Diggory started making accusations.  
  
Draco tried to brazen it out. "You still have no proof."  
  
"But that's the wonderful thing about accusations like that; you really don't need proof. Look at all the garbage you fed to Rita Skeeter; she just took what she wanted and twisted it around to mean what she wanted it to mean. And she's hardly the only reporter out there who would be interested in who was in the churchyard at Little Hangleton when Voldemort returned, and who was at the Battle of Hogsmeade."  
  
Draco tried to recover his superior air, but much of the wind had gone out of his sails. "You didn't call us here to tell us about our own fathers, so spit it out."  
  
"I won't take it to the Ministry. If they find out about your families, that's their lookout, but they won't have heard it from me."  
  
"And in exchange?"  
  
"Have your father arrange a meeting between me and Voldemort."  
  
Silence from the Slytherins. Draco was looking Harry over, taking his measure. Finally, he spoke: "I was right the first time; you're mad." He turned to leave.  
  
"Suit yourself," Harry called to them. "Mister Diggory should get home a bit after supper, and I've got enough Floo Powder for a nice long chat with him."  
  
Draco had stopped with his hand on the door. "You don't know what you're asking."  
  
"I know exactly what I'm asking. I've fought Voldemort to a draw twice now. It's got to end. So tell your father to contact …"  
  
"I am not your appointments secretary!"  
  
"Tell your father to arrange it."  
  
The two glared at each other for a minute, then Draco gave a barely perceptible nod to Crabbe and Goyle, who followed him out of the classroom. As soon as they were out, Harry slumped into a chair. He felt like he'd been holding his breath the whole time, and his legs wouldn't have supported him much longer.  
  
Now he'd have to work on the next part of the plan.  
  
* *  
  
Harry saw Draco later that afternoon, in the first Potions class of the year. Severus Snape never failed to take digs at the Gryffindors in general and Harry in particular. He wasn't sure if even Snape would dare say something in light of Cho's death.  
  
"Mister Potter."  
  
Here it comes, he thought. Don't let him get to you…  
  
"You should be aware that the composition of a potion, and its effectiveness, can be drastically altered by even a single teardrop. Do try to control your emotions in my class."  
  
Harry was halfway out of his chair before Ron grabbed his shoulder. "He's not worth it, Harry," Ron whispered, and Harry knew Ron was right. But still, between the remark and the Slytherins who were chuckling over it, Harry resolved to himself that Potions was going to be different this year. He just didn't see how yet.  
  
Snape led the class through two miserable hours teaching them how to make a Breathless Draught, which would allow the person who drank it to survive for twenty-four hours without breathing. "It's been used for a variety of purposes," Snape explained, "from underwater work to feigning death. Of course, some uses are more sensible than others."  
  
He looked at Harry, Ron and Hermione. "I shudder to think what some flippant, juvenile minds are capable of imagining."  
  
All three glowered at Snape but let the insult pass.  
  
Finally, class was over. Harry noticed that Hermione stayed by the door. He stopped to ask her about it, but she said, "Just go on ahead, I'll be there."  
  
Knowing about Hermione's own troubles, Harry also hung back, until he was the last to leave. Then he closed the door almost all the way, and listened at the crack.  
  
"Professor?"  
  
"I received your note, Miss Granger," Snape said wearily. "Ordinarily I would treat such a request with the contempt which it merits. However, as you are among the students with the highest academic scores in Hogwarts, I felt that you at least deserved the courtesy of an answer. And the answer is no."  
  
"But Professor!"  
  
"My decision is final."  
  
"You said in our first lesson that you could put a stopper in death itself. Look; I have it here in my notes."  
  
Harry marveled at Hermione; what other Sixth-Year would still have her First-Year class notes?  
  
"Miss Granger, IF you can keep that notoriously wagging tongue of yours still for a minute, I will try to explain to you why I will not give you the information you seek. I am sure that you have wondered why certain Houses double up for their classes. I assure you that it was not my idea, but I have seen the system function for many years, as student and as professor, and I support the logic that underlies the system.  
  
"Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, for example, are well-suited to study with each other. Ravenclaws, by and large, are cleverer than their peers-- oftentimes, too clever for their own good. And while Hufflepuffs will never earn a reputation for being clever, they are marked by dogged determination and the sheer will to do the necessary work. By throwing them together, one could learn from the other.  
  
"So it is with pairing Slytherin and Gryffindor. Gryffindors think entirely too much of the benefit to others, while Slytherins, I will admit, think too much in terms of the benefit to themselves. In your case, you are only considering the benefit to a small circle of people. Were you in fact to employ the formula you seek, whether I made it for you or not, you must realize that it would cause tremors in the Muggle world that, quite simply, would never die down.  
  
"An uneasy truce exists already between the two worlds, as the recent bombing shows. Providing a cancer-curing potion to the Muggles would please some of them, but would also frighten and enrage others who do not understand--or do not wish to understand. I am sure that you do not agree with my decision, but I am equally sure that you will agree, in time, that this is for the best."  
  
"The best? How can it be for the best to just let my mum die without trying everything possible..."  
  
"Because the world is much larger than just the Granger household. There are useless cures which need not be tried, and there are dangerous cures which must not be tried. And you need to learn the truth of this, or else all of your training here is for nothing. The powers and abilities you have gained in perfecting your witch craft are only suited to certain times and places. Otherwise, you could end up doing more harm than good. You may go."  
  
"But Professor…"  
  
"Miss Granger, you are dismissed."  
  
Harry didn't hear anything else except some quick footsteps coming toward the door. There was nowhere to run or hide When Hermione came out of the classroom, their eyes met; Hermione's were already red and swollen. They looked at each other for a second, then Hermione ran back up toward the castle.  
  
* *  
  
That evening, as the students were beginning supper, a large horned owl settled heavily onto the table in front of Harry. He had no idea who would be writing to him. He untied a letter and a photograph:  
  
"Dear Mister Haripota-san,  
  
I am Yoshiko Yumenaka. I am in seventh year at Kesshin Maho Gakuin. I was in the same class with Cho Chang, and we lived in the same House. We are now reading the terrible news of her death. This makes us all very sad, because she was a good person and a good student. I found this picture of her. I hope you will like it and keep it as a memory of her. We know that she loved you very much.  
  
Please come to visit us if you have the chance."  
  
The picture was taken during the summer festival; it showed a small food stand of some kind. There were bowls of what seemed to be fried noodles. Cho and another girl–perhaps it was Yoshiko–were apparently calling to passers-by to come and taste their cooking. They were dressed the same, in light blue-and-white short-sleeved jackets and a scarf covering their hair. It didn't seem to matter if they had customers or not; they were enjoying themselves immensely.  
  
Harry quickly got up from the table, quickly walked out of the hall, leaving the letter and picture on the table. Ron started to get up to follow him, but Hermione grabbed his robes.  
  
"Just let him be," she said. "Take those up to his room, but leave him alone."  
  
Harry made it as far as the entrance before he realized: he didn't know where he was going. He wanted to be alone, he felt as if Hogwarts was closing in on him. He didn't want to be anywhere inside. The Quidditch stadium—no, he'd still be inside.  
  
The Astronomy Tower. Open sky, the highest spot in the castle. Harry literally ran up the steps, as if it would vanish before he got there.  
  
But he got there, and he was alone. He saw the last of the sun setting behind the western hills—watched it through glasses streaked with tears. He got the notion as he watched the sun set that he was watching someone die. Surely someone was dying at that moment, somewhere in the world. It stood to reason; a matter of statistics; it was inevitable; it couldn't be stopped. Somebody would die the instant the sun disappeared behind the hill…  
  
And it was gone.  
  
"CHO!" Harry screamed into the twilight.  
  
Not even an echo came back.  
  
…to be continued… 


	3. Revealing the Hidden

WIZARDS DUEL: SIXTH YEAR  
  
by Patrick Drazen  
  
a/k/a monkeymouse  
  
3.3 Revealing the Hidden  
  
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it…]  
  
Harry thought he had his emotions, his memories, everything under control. By the end of that third night at Hogwarts, he knew better.  
  
The letter from Japan had caught him off his guard. It said in plain, if slightly broken, English what everyone knew: how much Cho had loved Harry. It only reminded him that he still loved her. Comparing what he was feeling to what Cho felt after Cedric was killed didn't help; it only reminded him that Cho was no longer there to talk to.  
  
By the end of the first week, Harry found a way to get back on steady ground: the Astronomy Tower. Sometimes after dinner he would just go up for a few minutes; at other times, he'd be there an hour or more. In any case, all his sorrow and grief and even rage—which he couldn't let out by day—could be aired out on the balcony. He then could go back down to Hogwarts, better able to withstand anything—even Snape's jests about "roaming the battlements like Hamlet's father".  
  
* *  
  
From his first day as Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, Albus Dumbledore had to answer far more student questions than any other teacher. In Harry's class, it was Dean Thomas who asked the question he had heard in every other class: "What made you want to teach again?"  
  
Dumbledore stayed seated behind the desk, and pushed up his spectacles in a way that reminded Harry of himself. "I've been very fortunate in my life. I've had the chance to do a great many things, not all of which would fit on the back of a Chocolate Frogs card. And there are some things that shouldn't be there at all. But I've looked back over my life, and decided that I was happiest when I was Transfiguration master here at Hogwarts. It's not only extremely gratifying, but very useful, to help the upcoming generation of witches and wizards to realize their magical abilities, and also to guide them in the proper uses of that ability.  
  
"I feel this is especially important for you students, at this time. The return of the Dark Lord will be the subject of this course, but it also may well be the guiding force in your lives, and not just in the near future. There are few other wizards I would trust with the responsibility of this class, and in any case securing their presence here has proven difficult. So, this old horse has allowed himself to be hitched up to the wagon again."  
  
Hermione's hand went up; Dumbledore nodded to her. "You spoke just now of teaching us the proper uses of magic. Why would Hogwarts teach us hexes and charms that weren't proper?"  
  
"A fair question, and a subtle distinction. When the false Alastor Moody was here, he taught the three Unforgivable Curses, and I believe that he was correct in doing so. Only by clearly seeing why some things are forbidden can we develop the judgment to decide such matters for ourselves. Otherwise, we blunder through by trial and error, and I admit to being one of the supreme blunderers of the wizarding world.  
  
"You will have to attend a higher institution of magical learning than Hogwarts to find out about the twelve uses of dragon's blood. I uncovered those uses during my days as a researcher for the Ministry. I had an assistant on that project; fresh out of Hogwarts, young, eager, very knowledgeable. Incidentally, he was also of Gryffindor House. I believed his knowledge to be superior and his ethics to be impeccable.  
  
"Not all research is neat and tidy; one often wanders down blind alleys, and doesn't always meet the nicest sort of magic there. My assistant tried to go down one of those blind alleys on his own, and came to a tragic end. I'll say no more about that now, except to say that he didn't realize until the very end what he had done, and in that last moment of clarity, before the Aurors could get to him, he hexed his own head off of his body."  
  
Harry broke out in a cold sweat. He knew those words…  
  
"Sometimes I think that the greatest defense possible against the Dark Arts is not to examine them alone. We all need to speak to each other, question each other, and stop each other from wandering down the wrong paths.  
  
"I have no assignment for this session. By the next lesson, I expect we'll all be better prepared."  
  
The others packed up quickly, glad to be released early. Harry, however, stayed behind.  
  
"Professor, about that assistant…"  
  
"Forgive me, Harry, but it really is a sore point with me that I'd rather not discuss now. Besides which, I need to prepare for the next class…"  
  
"It was Murgibrook, wasn't it?" Harry blurted out. "Frederick Murgibrook."  
  
Dumbledore's face turned white as granite. "I would like to know where you heard that name."  
  
"I stayed at the Leaky Cauldron this summer. The innkeeper's father talked about him one day, and I found out the rest of the story."  
  
Harry had never seen Dumbledore look so tired, so fragile. "Yes, Old Tom would be old enough to remember. So you think you know everything, Harry? I daresay you don't know that I hold myself to blame for what happened to him."  
  
"That's not true!" Harry cut in. "Whatever he did, you weren't responsible."  
  
"You speak truer than you know, because I wasn't responsible. We were making so many exciting discoveries, there was so much information…I simply handed some of the projects over to Frederick without taking any precautions, without giving him any guidance. He would never have become the monster he became if I had been more responsible.  
  
"So in the end, I presented the Ministry my report on the Twelve Uses of Dragon's Blood, having destroyed all evidence of the thirteenth use, and what it did to Frederick. I daresay his last thought was to curse my name." Harry shook his head, but Dumbledore went on. "I deserved it. I should have watched him, should have guided him. I left him alone in a wilderness, and expected him to find his own way out. That's why I became a teacher here; to try to set things right by making sure that no other student leaves here unprepared for the trials and occasional terrors of the wizarding world."  
  
Harry was almost beyond speaking. He sat at a desk in the first row, looking at nothing in particular. Half-aloud, he said, "A great lark."  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"It's nothing. Something I said to Cho that last day. When I first found out I was a wizard, I thought…"  
  
"Thought that it would be all fun and games. Even those who are born into wizarding families learn otherwise by the time they reach your age. It's the hardest part of teaching here, seeing all the First-Years arrive with a brilliant light in their eyes, like owls, and then watching that light dim and die away as they realize what they've been given to do in life."  
  
They sat together for a minute longer, then Harry looked at Dumbledore. "Professor, we both know what I've been given to do in life. It's the reason I'm still alive, in spite of Voldemort's magic. I have to face him again, and I'm going to need magic that isn't taught in class. Will you help me?"  
  
"You're asking about the kind of magic that is only taught to Seventh- Years. On the other hand, only Seventh-Years are supposed to know about Frederick Murgibrook, so perhaps you qualify after all. Talk to me again after our next class. Off with you, now."  
  
As Harry left, he saw Dumbledore standing at the classroom's sole window, gazing out onto the grounds. And finally Harry started to understand how such an old wizard could be so fragile and yet so strong.  
  
* *  
  
Harry was ready for the uproar caused by his announcement the following Monday at the first team meeting. All three Chasers had graduated the previous spring, leaving Harry as the most seasoned veteran. "If you're out of it," Beater Leigh Caporeale argued, "then Hufflepuff stands a better chance at the Cup than we do."  
  
"Excusing me," interrupted the other Beater, Zelko Myslevic. Normally he stayed in the back and spoke very little. None of the players could remember him being as agitated as he was now. "You are not playing because your woman is dead, is this so?" The way Zelko phrased the question surprised all the teammates and not just Harry; without waiting for an answer he went on. "When my father was playing for Durmstrang, this he tells me, armies of Dark Lord kill his family in the night before big game. Mother, father, father's mother, father's two brothers—all dead. Morning of game he hears news, he takes broom, flies to church in village, says prayer for their souls. Then goes back to Durmstrang and plays game." He folded his arms across his chest and glared at Harry.  
  
Harry tried to answer that, but no sound came out of his mouth. There was no way to answer that.  
  
Fortunately, Keeper Egan Mosley, although only a Fourth-Year, stepped in. "Actually, this isn't the exact moment for Harry to make a decision like that. It's weeks before our first match, we still have to find our new Chasers, and besides, Seekers play pretty much on their own anyway. If Harry needs a little more time to come to terms with things, there's no harm in that." Mosley then turned to Harry. "If you want to help us choose our Chasers, you're welcome, of course. But if you'd rather not…"  
  
Harry stayed in the meeting, but didn't say anything about the new Chasers. He didn't say anything about anything for the rest of the meting. When it was over, he ran to the Astronomy Tower and, in spite of a fierce thunderstorm, stayed up there almost an hour.  
  
* *  
  
Harry had asked Hermione about her mother a week into the term. "The surgery seemed to go well," she said. "We just have to wait and see." She never said a word to Harry about her mother after that, but sometimes they exchanged looks, and each knew exactly what the other was feeling. Harry understood her anxiety, waiting for bad news, while she could see in his eyes every time another painful memory of Cho crossed his mind.  
  
There was always something, it seemed, that reminded him of Cho. During the third week of the term, Professor Flitwick announced that in Charms class that day they would be studying an advanced bit of magic, the "Camera Oscura". While he was outlining the history of the Charm, Harry could only recall when Cho had used it on their last day together–he remembered again the vibrant taste of exotic foods, the intense joy of their lovemaking in the grass of the park in Brixton…  
  
Until Ron kicked him in the ankle. "Wake up!" he whispered to Harry. "We've gotta get into groups and try this."  
  
As a precaution, Professor Flitwick explained, they would be in groups of three. "The Charm is rather unstable with three or more in the Secret Room," he explained, "so if something goes amiss you should be able to break it up from the inside."  
  
He ended up grouping Ron with Hermione and Lee Jordan, and Harry with Neville and Seamus Finnegan.  
  
"Now, an important part of this Charm is that you can neither be seen nor heard once you're inside. So once you've cast your Camera Oscura, I'll want you to test it by singing something. Anything at all will do. It's just to see if we can hear it out here. Miss Granger, your group may go first."  
  
That was an obvious choice; however much she may have turned over the years from a schoolgirl to a young woman, Hermione was still the overanxious student, and would have volunteered to go first anyway. She, Ron and Lee stood together in front of the class; she traced a circle in the air with her wand, said "Camera Oscura"…  
  
and the three of them vanished.  
  
Harry hadn't realized how it must have looked from the outside, but it frightened him for a second. It was all too similar to disappearing by Portkey. He had to remind himself that they were still standing there. They simply couldn't be seen–or heard.  
  
Professor Flitwick smiled after a minute, and wiggled his fingers, signaling Hermione to open the Charm. They reappeared a second later.  
  
"Well done! Didn't see or hear a thing. Did you sing anything?"  
  
Ron beamed as he answered: "The Chudley Cannons Fight Song." Hermione rolled her eyes.  
  
Harry's group was up next. Harry, however, hadn't been paying attention to how the Charm was done, so he developed a sudden coughing fit, leaving the Charm to be cast by one of the others. Neville stepped up, traced the circle in the air and said, "Camera Oscura."  
  
Something shoved Harry into the other two, as if he were suddenly dropped into the middle of the spectators' box at a very popular Quidditch match. The three of them were being pushed together. Even worse, the entire class seemed to be watching their distress, but wasn't making a move to help them.  
  
"Open it!" Seamus yelled.  
  
"Can't move my arms!" Neville said.  
  
Now what? "Listen," Harry said. "Flitwick said the Charm's unstable with three or more people. Maybe we can burst through it."  
  
They all three struggled against the walls, with no luck.  
  
"All push the same way, then; toward Flitwick. PUSH!"  
  
They strained against a wall that wasn't there, until suddenly the barrier vanished and they tumbled onto the floor.  
  
"Dear me," Flitwick rushed to the boys as they picked themselves off the floor. "Was there a problem?"  
  
"None at all," Seamus said, "except that room tried to squeeze the life out of us. I've been in bigger phone boxes."  
  
"Ah yes, that can happen. Common problem for beginners: making the room just big enough for themselves. Good try, Neville, and I won't take any point for that one. Maybe you'd like to try, Harry?"  
  
Harry didn't particularly want to try, but he knew he had to. With the three standing together again, he drew with his wand and said, "Camera Oscura".  
  
The sounds of the classroom instantly vanished. They could see the others, but they couldn't hear them. They saw Lavender Brown sneeze, but didn't hear it.  
  
"Well done," Neville said.  
  
Harry turned to Seamus. "How about that song, then?"  
  
"Right. This is something I grew up hearing from me mom:  
  
Blue were the eyes of my darling Sally  
  
Blue as the skies was the dress she wore  
  
When she went walking down Knockturn Alley–  
  
I'll never see my love no more.  
  
She was the pride of old Killarney  
  
I thought that she would be my own  
  
Till she was bitten by Vampire Varney  
  
Now she walks the night alone."  
  
Just then Professor Flitwick signaled for them to open the Charm. Harry did so.  
  
"Excellent; couldn't see or hear anything that time. You were singing, weren't you?"  
  
Seamus nodded. "The Ballad of Varney the Vampire."  
  
"Ah, one of the old ones," the professor sighed. "I'd like to hear it again sometime. How many verses do you know?"  
  
"A hundred and forty-seven, Professor."  
  
"The short version, eh? No matter; it's just as fine. Now Parvati's group, please."  
  
"Hey, Harry," Ron whispered as three more students moved to the front. "How about that Charm? A fellow could do some first-rate snogging in a room like that."  
  
Harry looked at Ron, with such sadness that Ron realized his mistake: Harry and Cho HAD been in a room like that. Ron blushed almost as red as his hair.  
  
* *  
  
It seemed to Harry in the meantime that Hermione was dealing with her problems in her usual way: by throwing herself into her studies, with an intensity that surprised even him. She never seemed to be anywhere except the library or, when the library was closed, the Common Room.  
  
About a month into the school year, Harry happened to be in the library when one of Hermione's projects was finished. She had been sitting at one table for several hours, constantly referring to books, letters and–oddly enough–a deck of Chocolate Frogs wizard cards. He was just settling into his own reading for Divination when–  
  
"AHA!"  
  
Everyone in the library at that moment jumped at Hermione's outburst. She took a quick look at her work, grabbed up the cards and a sheaf of papers, stuffed everything else into her bag and strode briskly out the door. Harry followed quickly after.  
  
In the hall, he called to her: "Hermione! Wait!"  
  
She turned and seemed to see Harry for the first time.  
  
"Ah, Harry, good thing you're here. Do you remember how to get to Slytherin House?"  
  
Slytherin was in a dungeon, unlike the other Houses. Harry, Ron and Hermione were supposed to infiltrate it back when they were Second-Years, while trying to unravel the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets. Hermione, however, couldn't make it at the last minute.  
  
"Sure, I'll take you there. What's this all about?"  
  
"You'll see," Hermione smiled.  
  
They made their way toward the Slytherin House. But Hermione couldn't wait to tell Harry.  
  
"I realized that I couldn't be from an all-Muggle family. Logically speaking, it wasn't possible. There had to be some magic in my family somewhere; otherwise, anyone could be a witch just by picking up a book. I think it could change the whole debate about Muggles and Mudbloods. I mean, if Muggles can't work magic at all, then by definition Mudblood wizards aren't pure Muggles. There has to have been a wizarding ancestor somewhere, and the trick is to find that ancestor. So, if there was a magical ancestor in my family, then it was just a matter of digging mine out."  
  
They had arrived at an ordinary-looking stretch of blank stone wall in the dungeon area of Hogwarts. "There's a secret door in this wall, here. You have to say the password to open it, but…"  
  
Hermione cut Harry off. "MALFOY! OPEN THIS DOOR!"  
  
After a minute the door swung to, and there was Draco Malfoy, wearing his usual smugly superior look, with a dozen other Slythern behind him in various states of amusement.  
  
"Couldn't resist my charms after all these years, eh, Mudblood?" The others laughed.  
  
Hermione acted as if she hadn't heard him. "I've been going over my family history. If you'll look at THIS…" She thrust a parchment under Draco's nose. "As you can see, my mother was born Catherine Elstree in 1955. Her mother was Linda Hobarts, whose mother was Eleanor Quirt, whose mother was Maureen Velts. And Maureen Velts's mother was Quirinella Bletzly!"  
  
Harry hadn't a clue about that name, which Hermione said as if it meant something. At the mention of Quirinella Bletzly, though, the Slytherins looked at each other and started whispered conversations.  
  
"As you know," Hermione went on, "Quirinella was the twin sister of Raquetella Bletzly, and they were the only daughters of Cavendish Bletzly and Euphonie Mhurck, both of Hogwarts Graduating Class of 1847, and both of SLYTHERIN HOUSE!"  
  
Like a magician at the end of a card trick, she flourished the card for Cavendish Bletzly out of the deck of Chocolate Frogs cards. "It says here that Racquetella was accidentally killed when the Hogwarts Express jumped the tracks in 1862. Cavendish just sort of lost interest in everything after that. Quirinella graduated from Hogwarts in 1867, but nobody knows what became of her. Well, now I know what became of her. She married Herman Velts, my great-great-grandfather. And he may have been a Muggle, but Quirinella must have seen something in him to love. Maybe it was him, maybe it was her sister being killed, but she chose to live a Muggle life, for whatever reason. But she was a witch, and a Slytherin witch at that. So, Mister Draco Malfoy, STUFF you and STUFF your talk of Mudbloods!"  
  
With that, she turned on her heels and walked away. Harry lingered just a moment; the expressions on the faces of the Slytherins gathered there was priceless.  
  
* *  
  
When she came down to dinner that night, the entire Slytherin table hissed at Hermione Granger. She simply smiled, waved at them, and sat down at the Gryffindor table.  
  
"We heard all about your little performance today," Ron said. "You weren't joking, were you?"  
  
"Why would I joke about my family?" Hermione asked in all seriousness.  
  
"Well, I mean, Slytherin and all, that is, doesn't it make a difference…"  
  
"Ron," Hermione said in an exasperated manner only he seemed to bring out in her, "nothing is different. I'm not different. I had a great-great- granny who was in Slytherin, but that was ages ago. I was Sorted into Gryffindor, and I'm glad of it." She served herself a large spoonful of steamed carrots and a salmon steak in lemon sauce. "Honestly! It's not as if I've started speaking Parseltongue or anything. No offense, Harry," she hastily added.  
  
"But that lot at the Slytherin table…"  
  
"They were just trying to get a rise out of me, I'm sure. Let them try; it won't change anything."  
  
Ron stabbed his fork into a pork chop. "They'd just better watch it," he muttered. "Better not start thinking you're one of them. You're too good for them."  
  
Hermione stopped her forkful of fish halfway to her mouth. "That is probably the nicest compliment you've ever paid me."  
  
"Not a compliment," Ron said around a mouthful of potatoes. "It's the truth."  
  
Hermione sighed, half-smiled and went back to her dinner.  
  
…to be continued… 


	4. Never Saw You That Way Before

WIZARDS DUEL: SIXTH YEAR  
  
by Patrick Drazen  
  
a/k/a monkeymouse  
  
3.4 Never Saw You That Way Before  
  
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it…]  
  
At the next class in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Dumbledore arrived with no textbook. "This will be one of your more unusual classes this year, and I speak as the one who hired Sybill Trelawny in the first place. Now, we have a lot of ground to cover, so we might as well get started. In your Second Year here at Hogwarts, you may recall a spot of trouble involving the so-called Chamber of Secrets. What was at the heart of all that?" Hermione's hand was the first one up. "No fair, Miss Granger; you experienced the thing at close quarters, an advantage few of these others have enjoyed. Let me see—Miss Patil."  
  
"It was … a basilisk?"  
  
"No need to sound nervous; it was indeed a basilisk. Now, if that was the what, who was the who?"  
  
It took the class a little while to sort out the oddly-worded question, but finally Ron jumped to his feet.  
  
"Same problem, Mister Weasley. Anyone?"  
  
"Tom Riddle!" That was Lee Jordan.  
  
"I always appreciate a definite answer," Dumbledore smiled, "especially if it's a correct one. Now, it so happens that, when Tom Marvolo Riddle was a student here, I was Transfiguration Master…"  
  
Dumbledore spent much of the class reminiscing about Riddle, who showed himself for all the world to be a nice, polite, model student. In fact, he hid a great secret: he was studying deeper and increasingly arcane aspects of the Dark Arts, so that he might one day appear under the terrifying name Lord Voldemort.  
  
Finally, the class was over. "For next time," Dumbledore told the class, "read up on the history of Azkaban, and the Dementors' connection to the Dark Lord. No need to write anything up—not yet, anyway. I can promise you fewer reminiscences and more questions. Off with you, now."  
  
Everyone left except Harry and Dumbledore.  
  
"So," the old wizard said, "now the real lesson begins. Cast your mind back, Harry, to the incident with Tom Riddle. You said something to me back then about a comparison."  
  
"Well, he said that we were alike. But the more I think about that, the more it's just rubbish. He said we were both orphans, but that's not true. His father was still alive; he just disowned his son, who killed him years later."  
  
"And?"  
  
"And he said we were both from mixed parents; one magic, one Muggle. But that's a lie too. My mum was a witch and my dad was a wizard; it's just that my mum's people were Muggles, even if she wasn't. That would make her a Mudblood, I guess. But Riddle's father was all Muggle."  
  
"And?"  
  
And what? Harry tried to remember what the spirit of Tom Riddle, trapped in a magical diary, said to him: "He said we were both Parselmouths. But you said I wasn't born like that. It happened after he attacked me. But…but I don't know if he was born with it or just learned it."  
  
"Full marks, Mister Potter. And so far we can only theorize about Tom Riddle and his Parselmouth. I suspect he inherited it from his mother, Kintrina Marvolo. So there again, we've caught Tom Riddle in a lie. What does that tell you?"  
  
"Well, we know that he lies, but that's a stupid answer, I suppose."  
  
"It's only stupid if you stop there; go on."  
  
"He lied, well, about everything. He lied about Hagrid and had him expelled. He was Prefect, Best Boy, and all that was a lie; he really wanted to tear Hogwarts down."  
  
"But an habitual liar usually gets trapped by telling one lie too many. Once his credibility is questioned, all the lies collapse. Did that happen to Tom Riddle?"  
  
"No, I guess it didn't. So he only lied when…" and Harry finally had the insight Dumbledore was leading him toward. "He lied when it was to his advantage: to make himself look good, or to get someone to trust him, so they wouldn't suspect him."  
  
Dumbledore sighed contentedly. "And THAT, Harry, is the adversary you have put yourself up against. You wish to confront him again…"  
  
"How did you know that?" The words were out of Harry's mouth before he realized it.  
  
"Let's just say I have a few sources of information you aren't aware of yet. As I was saying, you wish to confront Lord Voldemort again, but his words could be your undoing, more than his magic, if you are not ready for them. To defeat Lord Voldemort, you must understand him, and to understand him, you must look to the truth beneath the truth."  
  
Harry was lost by that last sentence, but he nodded agreement. "One more difference, Harry; you're not the consummate liar Tom Riddle was. You don't quite understand what I just said; I can tell, but you won't admit it. In this battle, that could be fatal. That's all for this time."  
  
Harry gathered up his books, but as he was leaving the class, Dumbledore spoke again: "There's another difference between you and Tom Riddle. Riddle's record at Hogwarts was unblemished—no detentions, no missed assignments, no fights or squabbles. Sometimes, I prefer a student who's a bit of a handful."  
  
Harry blushed, nodded and left.  
  
xxx  
  
The Great McTwiddy Row started up in the Sixth-Years boys' dormitory, when an unsuspecting Neville Longbottom delivered a message, as well as a bag of books.  
  
"Oi, Ron," Neville said, taking a bulging bookbag off his shoulder and dropping it on Ron's bed. "Ginny asked me to give you this, just to hold it for her until tonight. She'll pick it up from you a little after nine in the Common Room." Before Ron could reply, Neville turned and was out the door.  
  
"What was that all about?" Harry asked Ron.  
  
"Beats me. Just between us and the ghosts, I think Neville may be sweet on Ginny."  
  
Harry suddenly recalled Neville's words on the Knight Bus, wondering if anyone would find him attractive, and saying it had something to do with Harry. "Well, I suppose he's harmless enough."  
  
"Unless you're dancing with him. Ginny said her feet were in terrible shape after the Yule Ball. Wonder what she sees in him?"  
  
"Neville's all right," Harry said, then went back to trying to make sense out of star charts. He was interrupted by Ron giving a kind of strangled shout.  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
Ron had opened Ginny's bookbag, and was now dumping the contents onto his bed. He was pointing at the books as if they were a nest of large and evil spiders. "It's McTwiddy!"  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"These are all trashy smutty novels by Adelaide Sump McTwiddy. I knew my Mom read these, but Ginny…"  
  
Harry had once heard Uncle Vernon complain about Petunia's love for books "written by women with three names". Harry wasn't interested in those kinds of books then, and it simply didn't occur to him that the wizarding world also had such writers.  
  
It seemed to bother Ron to no end, however, as he held aloft a couple of the books. "Look at these! "The Cauldron Boils Over". "Midnight and Mandragora". "A Harpy In My Heart". What's Ginny doing reading these?"  
  
Each book had the same picture on the back. It was of an old witch in shocking pink robes, decorated with gold glitter sunbursts. The furniture in the room was more like something from a museum than from anyone's house; it was the kind of furniture that looked like it belonged to two-hundred- year-old royalty.  
  
Harry shrugged. "Maybe she's curious."  
  
"She's only fifteen years old!"  
  
"But that doesn't make her a little kid. Face it, Ron, we're all getting older, including Ginny."  
  
"Yeah, but listen to this!" Ron picked up one volume, "Afternoons and Pumpkin Parfait." He opened the book at random and started reading:  
  
"…if her husband ever found out. But she couldn't fight Orvindo's animal magnetism. She thrilled from head to toe as he brutally pulled open her robes, revealing the glorious treasures within…" Ron slammed the book shut and threw it onto his bed. "That's filth!"  
  
Harry was trying very hard not to laugh at Ron. "And your mother reads these?"  
  
"Well, it's all right for her, isn't it? She's going to be a granny soon."  
  
"WHAT?"  
  
"Oh, yeah," Ron said sheepishly. "I forgot to mention that. I just got the owl yesterday from Mom. It looks like Penelope is preggo. Baby should arrive in June."  
  
"That's great! Congratulations, I guess."  
  
"Yeah. Who'd have thought ol' Percy had it in him?" He sat down on his bed, accidentally sitting on "Afternoons and Pumpkin Parfait"; he picked it up, gave an angry grunt and threw it on the floor in the middle of the room. As it landed, a piece of paper slipped out and floated to Harry's feet. He picked it up and read it…and kept reading it. "Erm, Ron, I don't think these belonged to your mother."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Look at this." He showed Ron a list:  
  
Yule Ball:  
  
Gown  
  
Bulgarian language lessons  
  
  
  
HAIR!!!!  
  
The two looked at the list, then at each other for a full minute.  
  
"You're not thinking…" Ron started.  
  
"Only sense I can make of it."  
  
"Well, well, that's even worse! Hermione reading this trash?! I've never known her to read anything but schoolbooks!"  
  
"Maybe she figured it was time for a change…"  
  
"Two years ago? That list was made for the Yule Ball, and that was Fourth- Year."  
  
"So what do we do?"  
  
"I know the first thing I'm going to do." Ron jumped up and dashed out of the room. Harry followed behind.  
  
From the railing on the stairs Harry saw that Neville was the only one in the Common Room, and that Ron was headed down the stairs straight for him. Harry wasn't quick enough to hear the first few words that were said.  
  
"That's all she said?"  
  
"I promise," Neville replied. "Ginny asked me to bring the bag back because she didn't want to carry around two sets of books. That's all."  
  
"Did you look inside?"  
  
"In the bag? No! Why should I?" But Ron and Harry both noticed Neville was blushing when he said it.  
  
"Oh, I think you know why you should," Ron said, trying to sound (Harry supposed) like an Auror about to spring the trap on a suspect under interrogation. "So; what do you know about Adelaide Sump McTwiddy?"  
  
"What, the writer? The one who does all those romance books? My gran reads those."  
  
"Would it surprise you to know that my sister Ginny seems to be a big fan of hers? Because that bag was full of her books."  
  
"So what if it is?"  
  
"So what?! Don't you think that stuff is a bit much for someone her age?"  
  
The blush deepened. "It's just a book, Ron."  
  
"Yeah? Well, maybe that book let you think you could try something on my kid sister…"  
  
"You're loony!" Neville jumped to his feet. "You asked how we were getting on the other day; we're getting on just fine, thank you very much. I haven't done anything disrespectful with Ginny, and I didn't expect you to give me this Spanish Inquisition!"  
  
"But you've read what's in them, haven't you?"  
  
"Well…looked through gran's copies…when she was out or…" Neville seemed more embarrassed to admit this than anything else.  
  
Harry thought he'd better put a stop to this. "Ron, look, Neville's just not a ripping-robes-open kind of guy…"  
  
Ron had calmed down. "Yeah, you're right," he nodded.  
  
And it might have ended there if Neville hadn't spoken up. "Anyway, she's the one that grabbed me."  
  
"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Ron turned on Neville again.  
  
"Nothing! Forget it!" Neville looked like he wanted to run out the portrait hole.  
  
"Back off, Ron, this is ridiculous," Harry tried to cool things down again.  
  
"Are you accusing my sister of something?" Ron went on, taking no notice of Harry. "Because if you're just lying about Ginny to cover up your own filthy…"  
  
"WHAT'S ALL THIS THEN?!"  
  
Hermione was standing on the stairs, her Prefects badge pinned to her bathrobe, watching Ron almost ready to strike Neville Longbottom. A second later, Ginny, also in a bathrobe, was by her side.  
  
"NEVILLE!" In an instant she was down the stairs, pulling Neville to a far corner of the Common Room.  
  
Hermione rushed down the stairs. "Ron, have you completely lost your mind? What did Neville ever do to you?"  
  
"It's what he did to Ginny!"  
  
Ginny's jaw fell open. "He didn't do ANYTHING to me!"  
  
"Well, he claims you did something to him!"  
  
She blushed crimson. "I, well, I, all right, I kissed him the other day. Is that a crime?!"  
  
Before Ron could answer, a chorus of "Ooooooh"s went up. It seemed as if half of Gryffindor House was on the steps watching all this.  
  
"Get back to your rooms at once!" Hermione shouted.  
  
Ron turned on Hermione. "And here we have the instigator."  
  
"Instigator?!"  
  
"Please, Ron," Harry tried to stop him, "don't say anything you'll regret…"  
  
Ron took no notice, moving in for the kill. "Or do you deny that those were YOUR books by Adelaide Sump McTwiddy?"  
  
That silenced Hermione for the moment. She must have known it looked bad. "Ginny said she wanted some light reading…"  
  
"Light reading? Strange wizards ripping married women's clothes off—you call that light reading?!"  
  
"Stop it Ron!" Ginny's voice managed to drown out her brother. She left Neville's side (not before quickly squeezing his hand in her own) and started back up the stairs. However, as she passed Ron, she spoke, so low that only Ron and Harry could hear it, "Or I'll tell everyone about the map." With that, she left the Common Room.  
  
Ron was silent. Hermione tried to gather as much dignity as she could as she turned to the students assembled on the steps. "Go back to your rooms, this instant. This little show is over."  
  
"Let me know when you're gonna do it again," Seamus Finnegan interrupted; "I'll sell tickets." Everyone laughed.  
  
Hermione turned with what little dignity she had left to Ron. "I'm going to take a bath now. I hope that this is the end of your McTwiddy lunacy."  
  
"MY lunacy?! YOU'RE the sex maniac with the books!"  
  
Hermione looked ready to punch Ron; instead, she stormed out the portrait hole toward the Prefects' Bathroom.  
  
"I tried to warn you…" Harry began.  
  
Ron rounded on him. "She's still my sister. You stay out of this!"  
  
He stormed back up the stairs, leaving a very frightened-looking Neville in a corner of the Common Room. Before Harry could say anything, though, Neville held up a hand.  
  
"Could we sort this all out tomorrow, Harry? Things might cool down by then."  
  
Harry nodded, went out into the corridor, and started laughing at the whole absurd mess. In spite of the late hour, he headed toward the Astronomy Tower, thinking that it would at least be fun to pretend to share a laugh over all this with Cho.  
  
xxx  
  
Ron and Hermione weren't speaking the next morning, of course; Ron and Ginny weren't speaking, either. Ginny sat next to Neville all during breakfast, which may have been why Neville was clumsier than usual. He managed to spill two pitchers of juice, one pitcher of milk, a dozen sausages and two dozen eggs. When he reached for his wand and tried to clean up the mess, the sausages flew away instead.  
  
Ginny gamely sat beside him, whispering something comforting the whole time–even when the salt shaker jumped up and hit her in the nose. (Of course, that turned out to be Peeves "just trying to get in on the fun.")  
  
The weather had taken a chill, so for once Harry didn't mind the close atmosphere of Madam Trelawny's Divination class. He did, however, take his usual chair close to a window. If the classroom became too stifling, he could always revive himself with a little cool air.  
  
As usual, Madam Trelawny waited a few minutes to sweep into the room. As she did, the first words out of her mouth was: "The Orient! That fabled land east of Suez, where there is no best or worst. In the next few weeks we will study methods of divination unique to that part of the world, including the reading of images from the shell of a tortoise, the casting of yarrow stalks, and the prophetic book known in China as the I Ching."  
  
She settled herself into her wingback chair, and her face suddenly took on a softer countenance. "Let me be honest with you, my dears; this unit was supposed to have begun the term, but we all had to do some rearranging in light of what happened to Miss Cho Chang. I was rather counting on her help with the I Ching, as her family is well-known in this regard. Not that I couldn't present the material to you as I've done to hundreds of your predecessors, but I felt that we all could have benefited by going to the source, so to speak. Poor child." She sat silently for a minute, as did the others. Harry made a point of looking out the window.  
  
Suddenly Madam Trelawny sprang back to life. "So; tortoise shells. I've a selection of shell fragments here at my desk, so if you'll all just come forward, pick one up, then refer to page 462. Mister Longbottom may look on with Miss Patil, as he seems to have brought the wrong bag."  
  
Sure enough, Neville reached into the bookbag for his Divination text, but came up with "Flocks of Doves and Unicorns" by Adelaide Sump McTwiddy. Remembering the night before, most of the Gryffindors laughed–including Harry.  
  
Ron and Hermione weren't laughing.  
  
That night, Harry came down to dinner, but–as had been typical in recent weeks–did no more than pick at some food. His interest in flying, in classes, in everything had declined sharply. He did have one short-term goal in mind, which required him to come face to face with Voldemort…  
  
He went to bed at the usual hour, but ended up tossing and turning. After an hour of that he went up to the Astronomy Tower. It was a beautiful clear night: no clouds and a dazzling moon, and stars by the hundreds all over the sky.  
  
Harry hardly noticed any of it. He checked the calendar in his head, as he had since the bombing, as if he were a prisoner scratching days into the wall of his cell. Seven full weeks had passed--forty-nine days.  
  
"What am I supposed to do?" he asked aloud. "I don't want to eat, I don't want to fly, classes are torture and sleep just won't come." He leaned on the parapet and buried his head in his arms. "God I miss you, Cho."  
  
"Sorry, Harry, but I got here as quick as I could."  
  
He spun around. There in the moonlight stood Cho Chang...  
  
Harry Potter fainted.  
  
…to be continued… 


	5. Everything's Different, Nothing's Change...

WIZARDS DUEL: SIXTH YEAR  
  
by Patrick Drazen  
  
a/k/a monkeymouse  
  
3.5 Everything's Different, Nothing's Changed  
  
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it…]  
  
Harry knew he was waking back up to consciousness, but he didn't know how long he'd been out. Someone's hand was under his shoulders, trying to push him to sit upright. Someone--some female voice he didn't recognize yet-- was talking to him, trying to get him to wake up. He opened his eyes to the cool air and the night sky--and there was Cho, outlined in silver by the moonlight. His hand reached out to her--and through her.  
  
"She's a ghost, Harry," Hermione said just behind him. She actually sounded dubious.  
  
Harry came forward, so that his nose was almost touching Cho's. "You're here?"  
  
"You didn't leave me much choice. Even while I lay dead in that hospital bed, I could hear you screaming. My body felt the pain that your body was feeling. How could I leave you?"  
  
"But that was weeks ago..."  
  
"In Chinese beliefs, the soul stays with the body for forty-nine days before it moves on into the next life. My family was in the middle of sending mine off when I stopped everything and told them I was going to Hogwarts to be with you. Almost touched off another major family argument, I'm afraid. Got the ancestors involved as well."  
  
"I don't understand. Did you need their permission to come here?"  
  
"You don't need permission once you're a ghost, Harry, but they could have kept me from coming. Granny spoke up on my … on our behalf."  
  
Harry look at Hermione. "Moaning Myrtle found me," she told Harry. "Seems when you fainted, Cho went looking for help, and Myrtle was the first one she saw. Harry, can I have a word with you?"  
  
Hermione led Harry to the other side of the parapet. It was as if she didn't want Cho to overhear her. "I'm sorry, Harry, but I have to wonder about this—the timing and all, with the Death Eaters about…"  
  
"What do they have to do with it?"  
  
"Well, all the ghosts about here are rather old, aren't they? And wouldn't it make sense for you to be haunted by your parents instead of…"  
  
"Look, what are you driving at?"  
  
"Well, and I don't mean any offense, but how do we know that's really the ghost of…"  
  
Harry cut her off, looking angrier than she'd ever seen him. "You may not mean any offense, Hermione Granger, but you'd better not finish that sentence."  
  
"Think about it, Harry. If the Dark Lord wanted to tempt you into doing something wrong, or even something stupid, what's the best bait he could send?"  
  
"You will not refer to the girl I love as BAIT!"  
  
"It's all right, Harry," Cho said, now floating just at his shoulder. "I can understand why she'd be worried."  
  
"But…but…you shouldn't have to prove that you're not evil! It's a damned insult!"  
  
"Maybe if the school had made Professor Moody prove he was who he said, the Tournament would have turned out differently, and Cedric might still be alive. Well, that's all one now. Hermione, what sort of proof would you consider sufficient?"  
  
At this, Hermione turned very nervous; it was one thing to be suspicious, while it was another to have to name the proof. "Well, er, it would have to be something that the Dark Lord wouldn't have any way of knowing."  
  
Harry interrupted: "Such as the last meal we had together?"  
  
"I know I'll never forget that," Cho smiled. "Caribbean chicken, mango and pineapple juice, in that park in Brixton."  
  
"I don't know," Hermione said; "someone could have seen you eat it."  
  
"No chance of that," Cho said; "I had put us in a Camera Oscura."  
  
"Still…" Hermione began.  
  
She was interrupted by Moaning Myrtle coming up through the floor. "Cho, what's taking so long? The others are anxious to meet you."  
  
"Well," Harry started, "someone appointed Hermione as Head Auror around here, so she's making Cho prove that she is who she says she is."  
  
"That's not fair, Harry!"  
  
"Well, how fair are you being to Cho?"  
  
"Excuse me," Cho interrupted, "but I think I know who can vouch for me. Myrtle, would you please bring the Grey Lady up here?"  
  
"Of course," Myrtle replied, "why not? Go ahead and treat Myrtle like a servant, have her fetch people at all hours, she's got nothing better to do…"  
  
"Erm, Myrtle; now, please," Cho asked. "Otherwise, this may never get resolved."  
  
Myrtle disappeared through the floor.  
  
"Why the Grey Lady?" Harry asked.  
  
"The day I was expelled from Hogwarts, Dumbledore walked me to Hogsmeade to meet my parents. The only one who saw me off was the Grey Lady. Besides, as Ravenclaw's resident ghost, she knew me for six years."  
  
Just then, Myrtle and the Grey Lady appeared on the Tower. Cho's ghost bowed to the Grey Lady, who floated over to her. They regarded each other for a full minute, then the Grey Lady did what nobody at Hogwarts could ever remember her doing: she smiled. She laid a ghostly hand against Cho's face and nodded her head, then sank back into the castle.  
  
"Harry, you and Hermione should get some rest," Cho said. "I'm going with Myrtle now. I'll see you in the morning." She started sinking through the floor.  
  
"Wait!" Hermione called out. "Listen, Cho, I … I'm sorry about just now. I didn't mean anything by it."  
  
"It's all right," Cho smiled. "I might have done the same in your place." Before she left the Tower, though, she turned back to Harry, whose face was a mix of hope and confusion. "Harry, my being back here … well, I hope it doesn't disrupt things too much."  
  
"Are you joking? This is the most normal I've felt in days! Cho, I … Well, I mean … Thanks for coming back."  
  
"Wo ai ni," Cho smiled, and disappeared through the floor, with Myrtle right behind her.  
  
"What was that she said at the end, Harry" Hermione asked.  
  
"Tell you later. We'd better get back down."  
  
Harry had lost track of the time, except that he was very tired. He and Hermione walked together in silence back to Gryffindor. In his dormitory room, he threw himself on the bed. The noise partly woke up Ron. "Whazzat? Where you been?"  
  
"Talking to Cho."  
  
"Whatever makes you happy," he muttered, turning over and going back to sleep.  
  
As Harry drifted off to sleep, the thought crossed his mind: "He's right. I'm happy."  
  
xxx  
  
When Harry woke up in the morning, he wasn't sure at first if he'd dreamed the whole thing—until he saw he was still wearing the clothes he wore on the Astronomy Tower. He cleaned himself up and went down to breakfast.  
  
Once all the students were in the Great Hall, Dumbledore stood and called for attention.  
  
"I have learned several things in my life, including the fact that one simply cannot housebreak a troll. Another is to take nothing for granted. Until this morning, for example, I thought that I would never say what I'm about to say, but say it I shall: Miss Cho Chang," and here he broke into a wide and sunny grin, "how delightful to see you again."  
  
"Thank you, Headmaster". Cho materialized next to the Ravenclaw table. One Second-Year screamed, but mostly the hall was filled with shocked gasps and whispered conversations.  
  
"May I ask, on behalf of us all, what brings you back to Hogwarts?"  
  
"That's just one of the things I'm still unsure of. I made a great many friends here, as have we all. One in particular." She turned to Harry and sighed. "One whose life I valued far above my own." After a few seconds, she turned back to the head table. "If there is a greater reason for my being here, I'm sure that it will be revealed to me in time. Might I stay until then?"  
  
"You may stay as long as you wish, or as long as circumstances wish it for you. Now, like the other ghosts here, you may enjoy the freedom of the castle, especially since there's precious little we can do to stop you. However, there are limits. There are, of course, boys' dormitories, lavatories, and assorted other tories that we are powerless to stop you from entering. But I ask that you show consideration for the privacy of your former schoolmates."  
  
"Of course, Headmaster."  
  
"The faculty is here to do very important work, as you will recall. I must ask you not to interfere in that work."  
  
"I understand."  
  
"Finally, it is difficult to spend time in close quarters with anyone without ruffling the occasional feather. That is certainly true of the other ghosts here at Hogwarts. I must ask you, therefore, to make every effort to get along with the ghosts here and not to cause any disputes. We have hardly any ways of settling such disputes, while the ways we do have are singularly unpleasant–or so I'm told."  
  
"I promise to be on my best behaviour."  
  
"In that case, may I be the first to welcome you back to Hogwarts Academy."  
  
Just then, the students heard an odd sort of noise; a kind of soundless fluttering. They looked around, and saw that it was Moaning Myrtle, standing by the door leading out of the hall. She was applauding.  
  
The Ravenclaw Quidditch team rose and also started applauding. So did other Ravenclaw students, then students from other Houses. Then the faculty at the head table; if Ravenclaw's teacher, Professor Flitwick, was on his feet, it was difficult to tell, as short as he was. Even a few Slytherin students joined in—though Pansy Parkinson and Draco Malfoy remained seated and unmoving.  
  
Harry Potter also stayed seated, gazing at Cho's ghost with joy and pride, looking happier than he had all year.  
  
xxx  
  
If people thought that Cho's ghost would spend all day and all night in the company of Harry Potter, they were proven wrong almost at once. She spent much of that first day back in Moaning Myrtle's first-floor toilet. She asked Myrtle questions about being a ghost at Hogwarts. (She later confided to Harry that she didn't really need all the information, but "It's been so long since anyone's made Myrtle feel important.")  
  
By day's end, though, girls were lining up to use that bathroom and talk with Cho. The girls weren't just Ravenclaw, either, but from all Houses; even some Slytherin girls who weren't browbeaten by Pansy Parkinson. Ginny Weasley got in the line, waited, talked with Cho, then got back in line to talk to her again, three times that first night.  
  
The next morning, Ravenclaw's Quidditch team–now all-male, with the addition of a new Seeker–complained of discrimination. So Cho had to start splitting her time, going from one part of Hogwarts to another. Then it expanded even further; she was floating from castle to stadium to greenhouse.  
  
As for what everyone was asking Cho, she was discreet enough not to mention anything specific afterwards. Some just wanted to clear up rumours of why she'd transferred. Other, younger students worried about various charms and hexes, and asked for help from an upperclassman who wouldn't explode or grow six new arms if something went wrong. Still others turned to Cho because she had been (and still was) so completely, so unstoppably in love with Harry Potter. While she had found happiness, others were confused, nervous and fearful about their feelings. They wanted advice, they wanted reassurance, they wanted a sympathetic ear. Even several Prefects were tempted to bare their souls to the ghost of Cho Chang, even though it was their duty to counsel others.  
  
She took it all in good grace, confiding to Harry at dinner one night, "It's a good thing ghosts don't need sleep. I couldn't have handled all this when I was alive. But then, nobody would have asked me what it's like to die."  
  
"They ask that?"  
  
"A lot of them," Cho nodded her head.  
  
xxx  
  
On the third night after Cho's return, Harry was on his way down to dinner when Cho appeared before him on the stairs. "Harry, is it true? You're not a Seeker anymore?"  
  
"Where did you hear that?"  
  
"From Hermione and Ron and Ginny; you remember them, they're your friends. I thought I was your friend too. Why am I just hearing this now?"  
  
"I just couldn't do it. When I got back here, flying, playing Quidditch—it all just felt wrong."  
  
"If you haven't been up flying, how could you know what it feels like?" Cho moved closer, and started to reach up to stroke Harry's cheek, then realized she couldn't. "Harry, so many people have asked for my help these past few days, except for you. It's my turn to help you."  
  
"Cho, I don't want…"  
  
"How can you be sure of what you think you want?" Cho asked. "I, on the other hand, can see what you need. So get your Firebolt and meet me in the stadium."  
  
"When?"  
  
"Whenever you like. Now; an hour from now; one o'clock in the morning. I have plenty of time." And she passed through the wall without another word.  
  
Why was she doing this? She was trying to do what he couldn't do on his own: break out of the shell he started building when Cho died. Part of Harry wanted to stay in the shell, where it had become quiet and safe and familiar. But Cho's return to Hogwarts changed everything. Didn't it? Or did it mean that everything was back to the way it used to be?  
  
Harry had to admit to himself that his main reason—his main excuse—not to fly was gone. Cho Chang was back, but not as a Ravenclaw Seeker. She was a ghost. What did any of that mean?  
  
Foir the first time since term began, he went back to the shed. He took out his Firebolt. He waited to feel—something. All he felt was a question: Why was Cho doing this to him?  
  
The only way to understand any of this was to take the Firebolt to the stadium, to meet with Cho.  
  
It was after sunset when he got to the stadium—the first time he was in the stadium at night. Cho was waiting for him at the center of the field—which reminded Harry of the visions he had had on the Hogwarts Express. Still, he asked, "I'm here, so why am I here?"  
  
"To be a Seeker, of course," she smiled, "and to catch the Golden Snitch."  
  
"I don't have one."  
  
"Yes you do," Cho smiled, as she started to rise off of the ground. "Catch me, Harry; I'm your Golden Snitch!"  
  
She beckoned to him even as she rose into the air and drifted away from him. Harry mounted up, kicked off the broom—and then the chase started in earnest. Cho flew the way she used to—only without a broom now. She kept taunting him:  
  
"Faster, Harry, faster! You have to do better than that. How about this; do you know this one? Ah, apparently you do. Then how about THIS?!"  
  
Cho was sailing all over the stadium, looping and spinning and changing course, with Harry right behind her all the way. For twenty minutes Harry chased Cho without thinking about death or life or any of it. Finally, she stopped at one of the goalposts:  
  
"Touch the goalpost." Harry put his hand on the post, and Cho put her hand on top of his.  
  
"You're the best Seeker in Hogwarts, Harry Potter. I like to think I gave you a good chase for that title, but you've definitely earned it. But that's not why I want to see you fly again. I want you to fly because it makes you happy, and I want you to be happy."  
  
"After the bombing, I just sort of gave up on happiness."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because you were gone."  
  
"But I'm not gone now, am I?"  
  
"No, you're not gone, but you're … different."  
  
"Harry, don't you understand? Each of us, we're more than just one thing. I didn't love you just because you were a Seeker. You were also the boy I fell in love with before I even met Cedric, and you were the boy who comforted me when Cedric was killed and my heart was shattered. You were the Animagus who transformed himself for my sake, and you were the friend I needed on one of the worst days of my life. None of that is different.  
  
"All that's truly different about me now is my body. It's gone. But I'm still here, and I still love you, and I always will."  
  
Harry was silent for a minute. "Cho, these past two months… You can't imagine… I've been putting myself through all kinds of torments because, well, because you were gone and I missed you. You were dead but I still loved you. And now I've got this second chance. Thank you."  
  
"We both have a second chance. I don't know what can come of it, but we shouldn't waste it." They simply hovered there by the goalpost, smiling.  
  
…to be continued… 


	6. Getting Better

WIZARDS DUEL: SIXTH YEAR  
  
by Patrick Drazen  
  
a/k/a monkeymouse  
  
3.6 Getting Better  
  
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it…]  
  
Quite a few people were pleased to see the ghost of Cho Chang at Hogwarts. These included Harry's friends. Ron and Hermione and Ginny all knew that, even though a hug or a kiss was impossible now between Harry and Cho, Harry still drew a great deal of comfort just from seeing her and talking with her again. She, in turn, looked happiest when she was with Harry.  
  
And it was during the first few days of Cho's return to Hogwarts that Ron realized that he had blown the whole Adelaide Sump McTwiddy problem out of all proportion. He still didn't like her books, and he still wasn't thrilled about Ginny reading them. But Ron saw Harry change day by day after Cho arrived, and realized that Ginny's choice of reading matter wasn't as important as Ginny's happiness. He told Ginny one night at dinner that what she wanted to read was her business.  
  
"Oh, that's so good of you, Ronny dear," she said, trying to sound very sarcastic. However, Ginny couldn't keep it up and started giggling almost at once, which helped everyone relax.  
  
Another half-dozen students at Hogwarts who were very glad for the return of Cho Chang was the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Ever since the term began, and Harry told them he wouldn't be playing, they'd tried other students as Seeker. None of them, however, could handle a broom as quickly and effortlessly as Harry.  
  
At the practice session the Saturday morning after Cho's return, the Gryffindor team seriously debated what to do. The best idea was to have a Chaser step in as a Seeker and then worry about filling the spot. But the new Chasers were opposed.  
  
"Things are tough enough now, and we haven't even played a proper game yet," complained Fifth-Year Sarah Barleybean. "And those two positions are just so different…"  
  
Just then, Harry Potter stepped into the stadium, carrying his Firebolt over his shoulder. "I heard you might have an opening."  
  
That was all it took. It was as if Harry had never left the team. The others finally felt hopeful about the season.  
  
xxx  
  
At least one person turned out to be very displeased with Cho for returning. In the last Potions class before the Quidditch season began, Draco Malfoy was in the foulest mood Harry had ever seen. Maybe he and Pansy had had some sort of falling-out, but he was taking out his displeasure on anyone who came in range. He even cursed out Crabbe and Goyle to the point that Harry almost felt sorry for them.  
  
Draco's behaviour finally got so bad that Snape had to tell him, in front of the whole class, "This is quite unacceptable. I want to have a word with you after class, Mister Malfoy."  
  
Draco was surly about it, but he agreed. Agreed a bit too quickly, in Harry's opinion, which made him curious as to what this was all about. But he couldn't see a way to stay behind without being seen. He'd left his Cloak of Invisibility up in his room, and the potion they were working on–Foxfire, a formula which, when applied to the skin, made it glow like a firefly–was no help at all.  
  
Coming out of the Potions dungeon, though, he saw Cho coming toward him.  
  
"Harry, I'm sorry, but can we work on those notes for Professor Trelawny after dinner? I need to meet with the Ravenclaw Prefects in a few minutes."  
  
"Yeah, fine," Harry said hastily, "but could you do me a quick favour? Can you sneak in there and find out what Draco and Snape are talking about?"  
  
"I suppose you don't want to tell me what this is about."  
  
"Not just yet. Please, Cho?"  
  
"All right. Wait here." She sank down through the floor until just half her head–from the nose up–was showing, like the periscope on a submarine. Then she passed through the door to the dungeon.  
  
A few minutes later, she passed through the door again and appeared in full in the hall. "Come on," she whispered to Harry, speeding up the stairs. Harry ran after her. They took a corner just in time to avoid being seen by Draco, who looked as angry as before as he passed.  
  
Harry let out the breath he had been holding and looked to Cho, who also looked angry. "What was that all about?" she asked in a cold and level voice.  
  
"First, tell me what they said."  
  
"I don't think I want to. I didn't like the sound of it."  
  
"Cho!"  
  
"When I was in the classroom, the first thing I heard was Malfoy yelling at Snape."  
  
"Malfoy??"  
  
"He seemed almost out of his head, going on about how they've lost their advantage, and why didn't the Professor contact Mister Malfoy the way he was supposed to. Well, Snape listened to as much as he could stand, then he turned on Malfoy. He said, 'You forget yourself, boy! You cannot presume to order me about as if you were your father. You are only his messenger, and you will remember that in the future.'  
  
"Draco didn't like that at all, but at least he knew enough to bite his tongue. So Snape went on to say that of course there had to be some alteration. And I quote: 'The return of Miss Chang, while unforeseen, is not fatal.' Then he said that it was more important to the plan to contact the Dementors; 'we can ignore Harry Potter; in fact, with the Death-Eaters at their current strength, we MUST ignore Harry Potter'. Then Snape told Draco to get to his next class, and I left. What do we have to do with the Death-Eaters?"  
  
Harry told her about Draco's conversation on the train, about being a piece in a chess game between Dumbledore and Voldemort; how Cho's death was supposed to leave Harry unable to act; and how Harry had defied that idea by trying to set up a meeting with Voldemort.  
  
"Harry, this is insane. What do you hope to accomplish?"  
  
"I don't know yet. I just know I have to do it this way. I've been having private Dark Arts lessons with Dumbledore, and I think I know a few things that'll help me."  
  
Cho thought for a minute. "I have to be somewhere else now. Meet me in our old spot in the library after dinner. You are not going to keep any secrets from me this time; I have to know exactly what you plan to do."  
  
"So you can try and stop me?"  
  
"I know you better than that, Harry Potter. All I want is to stop you getting killed before your time. I want to help."  
  
"With luck, it'll be like the Battle of Hogsmeade."  
  
"Somehow I don't think we'll have that kind of luck. Until tonight, my love." Cho passed through the wall.  
  
xxx  
  
On the first Saturday in November, the school turned out in force for the first Quidditch match: Slytherin versus Hufflepuff. Since neither of their Houses was playing, Harry and Cho decided to sit together. Although, "sit" wasn't exactly accurate for Cho; she just levitated above the bench. They were in the Gryffindor section, which still brought odd looks from some of the students.  
  
While they waited for play to start, they listened as Hermione went on–and on and on–about her discovery of her Slytherin great-great-grandmother. "I wrote it all up and presented it to Professor Idylwyld as a Muggle Studies project, and she was ecstatic! She said I'd proven something that had long been a theory of hers: that Muggle-born magic users can sometimes inherit their abilities across many generations. According to all the books and studies, magical tendencies are supposed to die out after the third generation, but I'm a throwback of five generations!  
  
"Well, Professor Idylwyld wants me to expand my work into Muggle genealogy, under her supervision. She thinks that we can have a major presentation at the WARTS gathering this summer!"  
  
"Congratulations, Hermione!" Cho said. "That's very impressive, especially at your age."  
  
"Yeah, congratulations," Harry added, "but do you mind if I ask what WARTS is?"  
  
"Wizarding And Related Topics Symposium. It's a gathering of professors from all the wizarding schools and universities in England. She says I'd be the first Sixth-Year to present at a WARTS gathering in decades! And if I wanted to go to a university after Hogwarts, with something like that on my record I could pretty well take my pick!"  
  
"That's really great, then," Harry smiled. He then noticed that Ron wasn't saying anything.  
  
Ron answered Harry's look. "I already congratulated her the first ten times I heard about this–once with every meal for the past few days."  
  
"So what if I'm repeating myself? It's exciting, isn't it?"  
  
"Oh yeah," Ron nodded. "Especially hearing about it the tenth time around; that's as exciting as feeding a flobberworm."  
  
Fortunately for Ron, just then the teams flew into the stadium and the game was about to get underway. But there was a hitch at the start of the game. When Madam Hooch blew the whistle and released the Golden Snitch, it made a bee-line flight straight for the ghost of Cho Chang. At first it simply orbited her head; then it actually started passing through her, and would not leave her alone.  
  
Cho swatted at the Snitch, which had no effect. "Harry! Make it stop!"  
  
It took a couple of tries, but Harry grabbed the Snitch. By this time, Madam Hooch was hovering near them.  
  
"Let me see that, Harry," she said. He handed her the Snitch. While she examined it, a visibly upset Cho Chang sank through the bench and out of the stands.  
  
"Cho! Wait!"  
  
Before he could follow her, though, Madam Hooch shouted to the crowd in a magically amplified voice: "There will be a time-out while we replace the Snitch."  
  
"Replace?" asked Hermione, who had been sitting on Harry's other side. "Has this sort of thing happened before?"  
  
Ron pitched his voice higher. "Oh honestly, am I the only one who's read 'Quidditch Through the Ages'?"  
  
Hermione was not amused. She fixed an icy glare on Ron, then turned back to Madam Hooch. "Did Cho do something to it, then?"  
  
"Only in a manner of speaking," Madam Hooch answered. "You see, there isn't much of a brain in something as small as a Snitch, but it definitely has a brain. That's how it can know to avoid the Seeker. But after a while, the Snitch begins hanging on to what it's experienced. It actually learns. It usually picks a person and forms an attachment, and that's what happened to this one. Makes it useless, of course. Have to give it away as a pet. Normally, it would go to the person it attached itself to. But that would be Miss Chang and, under the circumstances…"  
  
Harry worked his way down the row and left the bleachers as quickly as he could. Cho was waiting at the main entrance.  
  
"You don't want to go back in, then?" he asked.  
  
Cho shook her head. "Everyone would be staring at me and not the game. I don't want that right now. Can we just … walk somewhere for a while?"  
  
Harry nodded, and together they went down to the greenhouses. The crowd in the stadium became a dull roar, like a wave breaking now and then on the shoreline.  
  
"That Snitch didn't … bother you, did it?" He almost said, "hurt" but caught himself.  
  
"The way it just kept zipping through me as if I wasn't there. I felt … violated, somehow."  
  
Harry bit his lip and sat on the ground, with his back to the door of greenhouse number two. Cho sat cross-legged on the ground in front of him–or appeared to. He seemed to be pondering something, and she was waiting for him to figure it out.  
  
After a few minutes, he did. "Cho, do you have any regrets?"  
  
"Do you mean, am I sorry I met you?"  
  
"I hope you're not," he half-smiled.  
  
"Not at all," she smiled back.  
  
"Even if…" the thought that had troubled him for weeks was struggling to get out; "even if that bomb was meant for me? Even if I'm the reason you're dead?"  
  
"Is that what they think?"  
  
"They don't know yet. They just know it was a Muggle who did it."  
  
Cho had to think about that one for a minute. "First of all, you're not the reason I'm dead. You didn't send for me, telling me to Port to London. I chose to do that."  
  
"Yeah, but would you choose that again, knowing what you know now?"  
  
"Harry Potter, you asked me if I had any regrets. The only regret I have is the waste of time. We could have been together three years ago instead of just one. We could have gone to the Yule Ball together. Of course, I'd probably still be down in the lake during the Second Task," she smiled.  
  
"Are you saying you wouldn't change a thing?"  
  
She bit her lip, and a silvery blush came to her cheeks. "One thing."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I … Maybe I wouldn't have gone dancing that last night. Or we would have left after one dance. I'd have had you take me back to Diagon Alley, to your room at the Leaky Cauldron. And … I would have spent the night with you."  
  
There it was; the one thing Harry had consciously tried to avoid thinking about. "When did you decide…"  
  
"Harry, I wrestled with it for days before I arrived. All that day we were together, I didn't know what I'd do, where I'd spend the night. It's not that I didn't love you, but it was such a large step to take. Like going away to Hogwarts for the very first time. It wasn't until we were dancing that I really knew; knew that we were two lives that were part of one life. Then I was ready to take that last step: our two bodies becoming part of one body.  
  
"What we did in the park–that was amazing, Harry. My mother never even hinted that it could feel so–so overwhelming, so powerful. And that was with all our clothes on. After that, I was afraid of feeling anything even more intense, even more joyous than that. That's why I started crying afterward; I really was afraid. But when you were holding me on the dance floor, I finally felt that it was all right. That I could feel that fierce, powerful joy again and again, and each and every time you would be there, to give me that pleasure, and also protect me from being buried by it."  
  
Harry's head was spinning. It was a greater compliment than he'd ever hoped to receive, yet Cho was also saying that the chance would never come again. "Listen, if I were to go up to the Astronomy Tower, no wand, no broom, and just throw myself off…"  
  
"Don't even joke about it! Didn't mean to snap at you, but I've learned a few things since becoming a ghost, and the first thing is that you can't decide these things for yourself. If you were to kill yourself right now, there's still no guarantee that you'd even become a ghost, much less that you'd be here. You could end up haunting the Dursleys for all eternity."  
  
"Now THAT's frightening." Harry had to chuckle in spite of himself. "But you chose, didn't you?"  
  
"I only had a choice because of my family. They were performing a rite to sever all ties between my soul and my body. Once that happened, I could choose. But who would perform that rite for you?"  
  
Cho moved closer to him. "My love, if you miss holding me half as much as I miss holding you, then I don't know how you can bear it. But for now, we are where we are. I want things to change; I think we're both desperate for them to change. But we can't change them now. Maybe later."  
  
A loud roar came from the stadium. "Sounds like the Snitch," Harry said, getting to his feet. "It'll be suppertime soon." They went back up to the castle, going their separate ways from the front door; Harry to his dorm room, where he fell on his bed and closed the curtains, Cho to the now- empty Potions classroom in the dungeon. This way, each felt that they could cry without disturbing anyone else.  
  
…to be continued… 


	7. Turn for the Worse

WIZARDS DUEL: SIXTH YEAR  
  
by Patrick Drazen  
  
a/k/a monkeymouse  
  
3.7 A Turn for the Worse  
  
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it…]  
  
Harry had a fair number of appointments to keep each week in addition to classes and Quidditch practice. There were his meetings with Cho, of course, whenever the two of them could find a common time. It was all rather similar to the previous year—minus the physical contact. But they'd meet in the library as they used to, to talk about important things, or trivial things.  
  
Then there were the extra Dark Arts lessons with Dumbledore. Those few minutes each week after class was dismissed set his blood racing. They brought his plans against Voldemort into sharper and sharper focus. He began to feel that defeating Voldemort was actually possible.  
  
Then there came a day when things started to take a darker turn. It started one November day at breakfast, when Hermione came to the table with dark circles under her eyes and her hair as disordered as he'd ever seen it.  
  
"Are you all right?" Ginny asked.  
  
"I just … need a bit more sleep," she said, then got up and ran out of the Great Hall. Harry wanted to follow her, but thought that it might be a bad idea. He guessed it was a problem with her mother.  
  
He went to Herbology class later that morning, and Hermione was there, looking a bit better than she had at breakfast. Still, she looked unsteady, and Harry realized that she had actually Charmed herself to look better than she felt. This was so unlike her; he had to ask her about it after class. He waited until they were the last two in the greenhouse.  
  
"It's nothing, Harry, honestly."  
  
"You're lying to me, Hermione. I can see you've used a Placid Charm."  
  
Once Harry mentioned it, the Charm was broken, and Hermione returned to the haggard look she had at breakfast. "I guess I wasn't that good at it," she said sheepishly.  
  
"No, it was fine. I've just been taking extra lessons, to be able to spot things like that. Just tell me what's wrong."  
  
"What's wrong is that I'm the Prefect, not you. I shouldn't have to run to anyone else with my troubles."  
  
"Hermione, you have to talk about these things with somebody. Keep them inside you and they'll never be solved; you know that. That's what you'd say as Prefect, isn't it"  
  
She turned her back on Harry, but made no effort to leave the greenhouse. After a minute, she spoke, barely above a whisper. "They test mummy every couple of weeks, and things have been fine. Until just the other day. They found cancer in her fallopian tubes, so she'll have to have more surgery, and another round of chemo, and…" Her voice started to crack, but she stopped to get it under control. "They think they caught it in time, so it's nothing, really."  
  
"You're not acting like it's nothing."  
  
"It … it's just so damned unfair! She's already been through all this! Why can't I be sick for her this time?"  
  
"It just doesn't work that way. I know you wish it did; so do I, sometimes."  
  
Hermione turned to face Harry, looked as if she wanted to say something, then ran out of the greenhouse and toward the castle.  
  
xxx  
  
All of this was still on Harry's mind the following afternoon, when Defense Against the Dark Arts class ended, and Harry stayed behind to continue his special training with Professor Dumbledore.  
  
"First of all, Harry, I believe you had an assignment."  
  
Harry had been working on something for a few weeks at Dumbledore's request. He took a book out of his bag and set it on the table. Dumbledore examined the cover through his half-moon spectacles, then opened the book with his wand, turning a few pages. What he saw seemed to please him.  
  
"Excellent work, Harry. You should be able to build the model that you want."  
  
Harry, however, looked far from pleased. "Professor, excuse me, but something's been on my mind. Someone I know has been having a lot of trouble lately."  
  
Dumbledore nodded.  
  
"And, well, she puts up a brave front, but she really needs to do something about it, only I can't think what to tell her to do."  
  
"Believe it or not, Harry, you may not be able to think of what to do. Not everyone can be helped by someone else. Some trials are meant to be faced alone." Harry nodded. "And, usually, death is one of those trials."  
  
"God, I hope her mother doesn't die."  
  
"That will be as it may be. But other events are starting to move more swiftly. This may seem cold, but you need to let someone else worry about your friend. Fortunately, there's no shortage of those who care about her."  
  
"I'm talking about death."  
  
"So am I. Do you remember your first year here?"  
  
"Of course. I'd only just found out I was a wizard. And … I met Voldemort."  
  
"And what was Voldemort after?"  
  
"The Philosopher's Stone."  
  
"Was he really?"  
  
"Well, of course he was."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Well, because … Oh. I understand. He didn't want the Stone for its own sake. He wanted it to produce the Elixir of Life."  
  
"And why did he want it?"  
  
"Well, he didn't really have a body of his own. He wanted it to get enough strength to take over a real body."  
  
"If you were Voldemort, would that be all? Would that be enough?"  
  
"No, it wouldn't."  
  
"Put yourself in his place, Harry. How does Voldemort feel about death?"  
  
"It's a weapon for him to use against others. One of the Unforgivable Curses. But he spent so many years more dead than alive. It's surprising."  
  
"What is, Harry?"  
  
"That…" Harry had to stop, amazed by his realization. "That Voldemort should be so afraid of dying. He terrorizes everyone, even his followers, but he's terrified himself. Of death; that's the one thing that frightens him."  
  
"Tell me the truth, Harry; what about you?"  
  
He had to think for a minute. "Well, I guess we're all afraid of it. We like being alive. I suppose I'm afraid of dying, too. Except not really."  
  
"Why is that?"  
  
"Cho. She's here. She died, and she's still here. And we still love each other."  
  
"And that is magic far greater than any of the uses of dragon's blood. Hold onto that, Harry, for you will need it in the times to come."  
  
xxx  
  
The next evening, Harry and Ron were playing a game of wizards chess in the Common Room with a particularly noisy set Charlie had bought that summer in Loch Ness. These players dispatched each other with loud and colorful cursing and flying bits of chessmen.  
  
One of Ron's pawns had just taken apart Harry's remaining bishop, shouting out some very cruel things about the bishop's mother in the process. "We can keep this up, Harry, but it's mate in five moves. Or do you just want to start another game?"  
  
"No more for me tonight; my ears are still ringing. How do you do that, anyway?"  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"You always end up winning."  
  
"No; you always end up losing."  
  
"Makes the same, doesn't it?"  
  
"Not at all!" Ron got up, stretched and started pacing. "And I'm surprised at you, Harry; being a Seeker and all. You don't just look for Snitches all the time you're up there, do you?"  
  
Harry actually had to stop and think about the games he'd played. "No; it was always me against the opposing Seeker. There were other things, of course, like the odd Bludger or the weather, but it was mostly just the two of us."  
  
"Right; and…" Ron prompted him  
  
"Well, I had to chase the Snitch, but at the same time I had to figure out what the other Seeker would do."  
  
"And what happened when Cho beat you last year?"  
  
"Well, that was…" Harry actually smiled, remembering the end of the match. "It was because I had no way of knowing what she'd do."  
  
"And that's what I meant," Ron smiled. "If I know what moves you're going to make, it's all easy. I can even force you to make moves that'll make my life easier. If you ever came up with something I didn't already know, then I'd start to sweat."  
  
Ron had no way of hearing it, but Harry's head was filled with a sound like a thunderclap. It was the sound of the last piece falling into place…  
  
Just then, Hermione came into the Common Room through the portrait hole. She went right to Harry. She didn't even look at or speak to Ron, who Harry noticed suddenly seemed embarrassed, as if pretending Hermione wasn't even there. They must have had another fight.  
  
"Harry, Myrtle just came to me in the library. There's something wrong with Cho."  
  
"What?"  
  
"She didn't know. Cho's up on the Astronomy Tower. She hasn't been speaking to anyone. Maybe you'd better check on her."  
  
Harry was out of the Common Room with barely time for a "thank you" to Hermione. He ran up to the top of the Astronomy Tower, where he had first seen the ghost of Cho Chang.  
  
She was there now, sitting on the floor, her knees pulled up and her head down.  
  
Harry sat beside her. "Nice night, isn't it?"  
  
Cho didn't reply. Her head rested on her knees, her eyes were closed–Harry could actually tell that by seeing through her arms. "What is it, Cho?" Harry tried again. "They say something's wrong."  
  
"Everything's wrong," she sighed.  
  
"What do you mean? I want to help."  
  
"You can't help, Harry; not this time."  
  
"Well, at least tell me."  
  
She sighed again before lifting her head to look at Harry. "I understand ghosts a lot better now, having been one. I know why some of them act the way they do. Harry, I ... I think I'm going mad."  
  
"Cho, talk to me, please!"  
  
"Remember the day I came back, and Dumbledore told me to stay out of the boys' dormitories? Well, I've done what he said, for the most part. But there have been times in the last week or so when I went up to your dormitory room. It was late at night, or just before dawn, when the others were asleep and the bed-curtains were drawn. I just . . . " She started to cry. "I just wanted to see what it was like, to lie in the same bed with you, to watch you sleep, then to watch you wake up in the morning. Just as if we were married."  
  
"You . . . you did that?"  
  
She nodded. "But of course I can't lie on the bed; I can only float above it. I can't touch you, and you can't touch me. It was like being in a zoo, with us on opposite sides of the glass. I was a fool to even think it." She started crying again.  
  
"Cho, listen. You weren't a fool; or if you were, then I'm a bigger one. Do you know how many times I wished for you to do exactly that?"  
  
"Before the bomb, I'm sure."  
  
"Before AND after! Yes, I want to hold you and touch you, and it's not possible now, but there's got to be a way."  
  
"If there is, I can't find it. And none of the others I've spoken to knows what to do."  
  
"The others? Did that include Peeves?"  
  
"He's a filthy little brute, Harry. If I told you some of the things he's said to me…"  
  
"But what's important now is that he can touch. He can take hold of things and move them. You can ask him how."  
  
It was as if the notion had never occurred to her before. "But why…"  
  
"Because I still have to take on Voldemort, and I need your help to do it."  
  
"What do you mean–you have to? There are lots of other wizards out there who aren't Death-Eaters."  
  
"But none of them have this." He pointed toward the scar. "As long as I'm alive, I'm Voldemort's unfinished business. Face it, Cho, this is what my whole life has been about. Do you think I can just sit back here safely, take my OWLs and NEWTs and only then go after him? He won't wait to go after others, so I can't either."  
  
"And you really think I can help in this?"  
  
"I know you can; I'm counting on you saying yes."  
  
"Then why didn't you say something sooner?"  
  
"I didn't want to speak for you, especially in this."  
  
"Why? What's he going to do, kill me?"  
  
"It's no joke, Cho. Remember Nearly Headless Nick and the Chamber of Secrets? If anyone can kill a ghost, he can."  
  
"Then let him launch me back into the Great Mystery. I was headed there anyway, before I came back to Hogwarts. Just tell me what you need me to do."  
  
"First, get through to Peeves. Find out from him why a poltergeist can move stuff around and other ghosts can't. And if you can do it, learn how."  
  
Harry waited while she listened to all that he asked of her. She didn't have to do any of it. And, in spite of the brave front she put up, Cho–even her ghost–was just as scared of Lord Voldemort as the rest of the wizarding world. But then, he saw it; the crinkling of her ghostly forehead. She was trying to work out the problem of Peeves. She'd cooperate with him.  
  
"Will you be all right up here?"  
  
"Being a ghost has some advantages. I'm not cold, and I don't need sleep or get hungry. And I still have lots of friends here, but I miss you so when you're not around."  
  
"Same here. Come find me whenever you want, then. I don't care if I'm in class, playing Quidditch or in the bath."  
  
"Ooh; can I bring Myrtle, then?" she smiled.  
  
Harry smiled back. "Oh, she's already seen me in the bath." He turned to go back down, then stopped on the stairs. "Did you really watch me sleep?"  
  
Cho nodded. "Without your glasses, and don't get mad at me for saying this, but you looked like a child. You were at peace."  
  
"Someday, I really would like to wake up with you in the bed next to me."  
  
"I'll work on that next." She started to sink through the floor, but stopped when she was halfway down. "This may not be a good idea, it may be utterly impractical, but I still love you."  
  
"It's crazy and impossible, and I still love you too."  
  
Cho sank through into Hogwarts.  
  
…to be continued… 


	8. Stumbling

WIZARDS DUEL: SIXTH YEAR  
  
by Patrick Drazen  
  
a/k/a monkeymouse  
  
3.8 Stumbling  
  
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it…]  
  
Hermione's nervous mood seemed to be contagious. She and Ron spent most of the next week not speaking to each other. Ginny tried to patch up whatever was wrong, but Hermione would only tell her (or Ron would tell Harry) "there's nothing wrong", and leave it at that.  
  
But there was definitely something happening–if not wrong, then certainly strange. Neville was more accident-prone than usual, and he was especially bad in Potions. He upset his cauldron and had the entire room filled with thick white smoke. The odd part was that Harry thought that, as the smoke cleared, he heard Ron whisper a quick "Thanks" to Neville.  
  
xxx  
  
Gryffindor faced off against Ravenclaw for what would prove to be Harry Potter's final Quidditch match at Hogwarts. This was Ravenclaw's first game in years without Cho Chang as Seeker, and, even though she had come back to Hogwarts, the team started practice that term intending to dedicate the season to her memory. In addition to the Ravenclaw colors, the boys all wore silk scarves with Cho's name printed in Chinese characters. Cho found it quite moving.  
  
Harry, however, didn't admire it all as much as Cho did. The Ravenclaws played as if they were possessed. It was the hardest-fought battle he had ever been in–which was saying something. Even Malfoy's penchant for cheating would have seemed relaxing to Harry.  
  
But, in the end, it was Ravenclaw's very aggression, and its new Seeker–a Fifth-Year named Alfred J. Prufrock–that determined the game. Prufrock chased after anything that could even remotely have been the Golden Snitch, with the result that he tired himself out after an hour. But while Prufrock tired early, the Ravenclaw Beaters didn't; they Bludgered Harry relentlessly until, with one arm up to deflect Bludger blows and his knees grasping the broom, he grabbed the Snitch.  
  
Cho congratulated Harry on the win. So did Hermione and Ron, until they realized that they were speaking at the same time. Then they turned away from each other, not angry but embarrassed by something.  
  
xxx  
  
The next morning, Harry learned the truth of it, or at least part of the truth. The night before, Cho had asked him to write a letter to her parents, letting them know how she was getting on. By the time they were done, Harry was too sleepy to send it off, so he went up to the Owlery when he awoke the next day. However, there were already two people up there, and he had no trouble recognizing the voices.  
  
"Hold it! You're not sending that, are you?"  
  
"It has to be in something that won't break, and a silver flask …"  
  
"But … I don't believe you did that. Look what it says here."  
  
Harry heard a turning of pages. "What? 'Must come in contact with nothing made of silver'? Oh, no–I've spoilt it! I've spoilt it!" Harry heard something fall to the floor, then Hermione crying.  
  
"It's all right," Ron said, trying to keep her quiet. "We'll just whip up another batch. I think I pinched enough stuff from Snape."  
  
"What if you haven't?"  
  
"Then I'll just go back for more. It's all for a good cause, isn't it?"  
  
Harry heard a soft "Thank you, Ron", then an indistinct sound of robes rustling. He decided that this would be a good time to have breakfast. He went down to the Great Hall, had some waffles and bangers, then went back up to the Owlery. This time, Ron and Hermione were gone.  
  
xxx  
  
A few days later, they were all back in dual Potions with the Sixth-Year Slytherins. Snape was in his usual form–telling off the students from both Houses about the theft of ingredients from his stores, pointing the finger at Harry–who was innocent this time–and then at Dumbledore:  
  
"Still, one follows where one is led, and I daresay that the atmosphere in this school hasn't been this ethically bereft in a decade. Now that our Headmaster has also decided to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, and to do a dubious job at both …"  
  
Harry finally experienced what could only be called the last straw. He stood up, angrily and noisily, and started throwing his supplies into his cauldron.  
  
"Sit down, Mister Potter!"  
  
"No I won't! I'm leaving!"  
  
"You have cost Gryffindor House twenty points just now …"  
  
"I don't care if you take off a hundred! If you're here to teach Potions, then teach Potions! We don't need your insults, your criticism of Professor Dumbledore or your constant bullshit!"  
  
Snape's mouth was moving, but there wasn't a sound–except for Seamus Finnegan slamming his fist on the table and shouting "YES!" But hardly anyone noticed–all eyes were on Snape, who seemed on the verge of having a fit. After another minute, Snape closed his mouth, walked up to Harry, grabbed his robes by the collar and pushed him out of the classroom.  
  
He didn't let go of Harry's robes for an instant as he pushed him through the corridors to the entrance to Dumbledore's office. His face soured even further as he gave the password–clearly, the last thing Snape felt like doing was saying "Tutti frutti". He shoved Harry into the office, where Dumbledore was writing at his desk, and toward an empty chair.  
  
"A social call, Severus?" Dumbledore asked pleasantly.  
  
Snape sat at another table, took up a piece of parchment, pulled a quill out of his robes and started writing. "I regret that matters have come to this, but here they are and there's nothing to be done about them except to meet them head-on. I am bringing charges against Mister Potter here, and I expect the proper disciplinary action to be taken."  
  
"And exactly what has Mister Potter done to merit this action?"  
  
Even as he was speaking, Snape's quill flew over the parchment, turning out page after page. "Just now, he was disruptive, disrespectful, insubordinate and abusive in his language toward a member of the Hogwarts faculty. However, I assure you that these are only the most recent charges of which he is guilty."  
  
"A hearing would more properly determine guilt, would it not?"  
  
"I am confident of the outcome of such a hearing. If you only knew what I have had to endure from this, this…"  
  
Dumbledore held up his hand. "Your point is taken, Severus. I was just waiting for Professor McGonagall to stop by my office. She and I were to discuss the upcoming holidays. However, since she is Head of Gryffindor House, she will need to be part of any disciplinary proceedings, will she not?"  
  
"I am all in favor of an expedited hearing," Snape answered.  
  
At this, Harry finally spoke. "So I'm to have a trial on the spot, without a chance to…"  
  
Dumbledore held up a finger. "Harry, unless you wish to jeopardize more than your career here at Hogwarts, you would do well to hold your tongue."  
  
"Pity he didn't heed such counsel earlier today," Snape said as he finished up his charges against Harry Potter, rolled up the five sheets of parchment and handed them to Dumbledore.  
  
At that moment, Professor McGonagall entered the office. She glanced nervously at Snape. "I had assumed this would be an informal…"  
  
"Something has come up which wasn't on the agenda." Dumbledore handed the scrolls to McGonagall. "These will go a long way toward explaining things."  
  
McGonagall read the scrolls, then reread them more closely. She turned to Snape: "Surely you're not serious about pressing these charges?"  
  
"And why, pray tell, would I not?"  
  
"Because," Dumbledore put in, "the student against whom you have brought these charges is dead."  
  
Snape stared disbelieving as Dumbledore handed back the scrolls. He scanned through them, dropping them on the floor as he finished each one. "This can't be! There's been some sort of a trick!"  
  
Harry picked up a scroll and looked at it. Snape was bringing charges—against James Potter. James Potter was out of bed after hours… James Potter was insulting to professors… James Potter used an Invisibility Cloak for improper purposes… Nowhere was the name Harry Potter mentioned.  
  
Dumbledore turned to Harry. "I suggest that you go back down to the Potions dungeon and dismiss the class. They will wonder what has become of the two of you. In the meantime, Professors Snape, McGonagall and I will have a much-needed conference."  
  
Harry started toward the door, but he looked back and saw Snape's face was now whiter than Hedwig's feathers.  
  
xxx  
  
At breakfast the next day, Dumbledore announced that Professor Severus Snape was taking a "leave of absence", with Potions to be taught in the interim by Professor Grubbly-Plank.  
  
The rumour had already gotten around to all of the Houses, so the news wasn't greeted with rejoicing. But the students certainly looked back on the career of Professor Snape. Almost everyone had a story to tell.  
  
Cho, for her part, had been talking with the other ghosts about Snape, James Potter and the Marauders; it seemed that Snape had so much trouble with Potter, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew that it colored his view of Harry. Snape detested the smallest infractions by Harry because he didn't want to have to deal with the student he thought of as James Junior.  
  
"For one thing," Moaning Myrtle (who loved gossip, especially about those who couldn't fight back) told Cho, "the Marauders were hardly the first students to borrow equipment from Snape's classroom to try to distill their own firewhiskey."  
  
"And they probably won't be the last."  
  
"But they were definitely the youngest," Myrtle went on; "only thirteen when they brewed up a batch of the stuff. Tasted just like Ogden's, so the older boys said, and it even had a bit more of a kick to it."  
  
**  
  
"I can't believe you told him off like that!" Cho said later that night.  
  
"It's high time someone did it," Hermione said. "The man is a monster!"  
  
"Yeh; next time they have the Tri-wizard, they should make Snape the Fourth Task."  
  
They all laughed at Ron's remark. Harry, Ron and Hermione sat round the fire in the Gryffindor Common Room, while Cho hovered beside Harry. She had decided to throw caution to the winds and openly appeared there with Harry. A Seventh-Year Prefect had made some noise about her "giving our secrets away" to Ravenclaw, but Cho simply smiled prettily and said, "Dead men tell no tales." Nobody could argue with that.  
  
"I might have gone in more seriously for my family herbalist business if it wasn't for Snape," Cho sighed.  
  
"What did he do to you?" Hermione asked.  
  
"It was the very first class on my very first day of my first year. I really wanted to make a good impression. Maybe he was trying to catch us all out, but he picked up a plant and asked, 'Can anyone tell me the properties of horsetail?' Well, the plant he held up was one we've known about in China for thousands of years; we call it ma huang. So I stood up and started running down the whole history of it, what it's used for, people who should and shouldn't take it. I just gave him everything I could remember.  
  
"But Snape just looks at me, very coldly, and says 'Miss Chang, students of Ravenclaw House have a reputation for being clever–usually too clever for their own good. You seem to be fitting neatly into that tradition.' And he turns his back to me."  
  
"Just what he told me," Hermione nodded.  
  
"I had been feeling very proud of myself up until he said that. So I got mad and said, 'Why did you ask the question if you didn't want the answer?'"  
  
The others winced. "Well, I didn't know what he'd do," Cho went on. "So he turned back, and you could see he was angry. All he said was, 'Ten points from Ravenclaw for insolence, and ten points from Ravenclaw for insubordination. If you don't know how to behave in a classroom, maybe you shouldn't be here at all.' I didn't speak up in any class for a month after that."  
  
xxx  
  
They stayed up talking about Snape, about what they wanted to do when they first arrived at Hogwarts, what they wanted to do once they graduated. They kept their private party going until after midnight. Hermione had to remind them about classes the next day. Cho left to find Peeves. Hermione said only "Ron", and went up to her room; Ron didn't say anything to her.  
  
Up in their dormitory, Ron checked Seamus, Dean and Neville to make sure they were asleep, then motioned for Harry to join him near the window.  
  
"Is this about you and Hermione?" Harry asked before Ron had a chance to say anything. "You two have been acting awfully strange lately."  
  
"You don't know the half of it," Ron whispered back. "And I've got to tell you before I burst open. First of all, it has to do with her mom…"  
  
"I know all about that," Harry nodded.  
  
"You may think you do," Ron answered back. "About two Sundays ago, I go up early to the Owlery. Pig was at it again: bringing mail from Percy to me that was supposed to go to Dumbledore. So I send off a message to Percy, and just when I get ready to go down to the castle, Hermione comes up. She has a letter she wants to send to her dad. She can hardly tie the thing onto the owl's leg, her hands are shaking so. I help her; the bird flies off.  
  
"Then she goes completely to pieces. She just blurts out this whole story about her mum having cancer. Well, I'm totally out of my depth here. My family's healthy as a herd of hippogriffs; we've never been through anything like that. But she doesn't want to hear about that at the moment; she wants comforting. Even an idjit like myself can see that. So she's crying all over my shoulder, and I'm holding on to her, and it's not altogether unpleasant, if you know what I mean. But part of me is wishing she'd pull herself together and get back downstairs before we're discovered. But…she doesn't."  
  
Harry was hanging on Ron's story. Ron seemed to be reluctant about telling this next part of the story, but pressed on: "So, she's sort of hanging on to me, and I'm sort of hanging on to her, and I've never been in a situation like that in my life, and part of me wishes it was over and part of me likes it just fine. And I didn't have a clue as to what Hermione really wanted, apart from someone to hang onto. Until she kisses me square on the mouth."  
  
"Get off!"  
  
"Truth. Now I was really in it up to my neck. If I'd tried to stop her, she'd probably scream at me; not that I ever cared about her opinion of me, but … well, maybe I did care a bit about her opinion of me. Anyway, she's kissing me, and I'm kissing her, and she grabs on tight, and I grab on tight, and … and, well, one thing led to another..."  
  
Harry's mouth dropped open. "You DIDN'T!"  
  
Ron grinned a grin that was embarrassed and amazed and proud all at once. "We did."  
  
"Well! I... Wow! I don't know what to say!"  
  
"I think it's your turn to ask me, 'what's it like.'"  
  
They both laughed, although a bit nervously. Harry didn't know if this was a laughing matter. "Well, actually, I want to know something else. I know how I feel when I'm away from Cho: like I'm not complete, like there's a hole right through me. It's like when I was a Muggle and didn't know I wasn't. Is this making any sense?"  
  
"Yeh, it is."  
  
"I'm not asking what it's like, but what is she like. And I don't mean doing it; how do you feel about Hermione?"  
  
"Well, I've found out that I can't separate the two any more. I tried to think about what it would be like, me shagging someone else. It just doesn't happen; I lose interest."  
  
"But that's not the only way you see Hermione, is it? I mean, as just someone to..."  
  
"NO! Of course not! For God's sake, Harry, as much as we've been through?"  
  
"You gave her a rough time because of Crookshanks."  
  
"Yeh, and ever since I found out I was fretting over the scum that helped bring back You-Know-Who, I've been sick to death over it. I reckon that cat knows more than all of us."  
  
"Still, you and Hermione? I wouldn't give you five minutes."  
  
"Wake up, you git. We've known each other six years!"  
  
"So, what are you gonna do about it?"  
  
"I've thought about it for days, Harry, and I still don't know. But we're going to have to come up with something. It's just too dangerous."  
  
"What is?"  
  
"Well, the last couple of Sundays, I … I made it a point to go up to the Owlery, just to see if she was there. And … she was, like she was looking for me. And we don't say a word; we just…"  
  
"Pick up where you left it off?" Ron nodded. "You two are completely certifiable! You keep on doing that, it's only a matter of time before you're caught, and then you know the whole school will hear about it."  
  
"Well, that's easy to say and all, but what do I do now? I know she deserves better than me, but I can't just walk away like nothing's happened. But I've got to do something."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Whoddya mean?"  
  
"I can think of worse things in this world than you and Hermione, y'know, getting together."  
  
"Thank you, Harry Potter, for being no help at all."  
  
Harry knew that Ron was right: that no matter what he said to Ron, it wouldn't be of any help at all. Still, Ron seemed to be doing all right on his own–if this was what Hermione really wanted. He'd have to ask her about it–very, very carefully.  
  
…to be continued… 


	9. Making Connections

WIZARDS DUEL: SIXTH YEAR  
  
by Patrick Drazen  
  
a/k/a monkeymouse  
  
3.9 Making Connections  
  
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it…]  
  
Snow started to fall on the first day of December, but it didn't stick. By nightfall the ground seemed even more bleak and barren.  
  
Harry's nerves were on edge. Every day was a race now, and he wasn't sure who would cross the finish line first. Any minute he expected Lord Voldemort's reply, an invitation to meet–and Harry had to be ready. But in order for Harry to be ready, Dumbledore had to be ready, and Cho had to be ready…  
  
He was in greenhouse number three that afternoon, trying to give a transfusion to a bloodwort, when he heard Cho's voice, barely above a whisper. "Don't turn around and don't say a word. Just come up to your dorm room straight after dinner."  
  
He turned, but she was already gone.  
  
He was so anxious to speak with Cho that he hardly ate anything. This didn't escape Hermione's notice. Ever since Cho's ghost came back to Hogwarts, Harry's appetite had gone back to normal, but now it seemed to Hermione that it was changing back to his too-despairing-to-eat diet at the beginning of the term.  
  
"You're not eating properly again, Harry," she clucked. "If you're having problems with something, or someone, you should get them settled before you come to the table."  
  
"What's it to you?" Ron interrupted before Harry could answer back. "Some people are always trying to run other people's lives."  
  
"Some people aren't mature enough to run their own."  
  
"So when did some people ask you to step in?"  
  
"I would have thought that some people would appreciate the effort."  
  
Lee Jordan piped up: "And some people are gonna sick up if you two don't stop it!"  
  
Everyone laughed at that; Ron and Hermione smiled dutifully, but they clearly wanted to continue their argument. Harry took advantage of the moment to excuse himself.  
  
"Off to the library, then?" Neville asked.  
  
"No, er, just…" Harry left the sentence unfinished and almost ran out of the hall to Gryffindor.  
  
When he got up to his dormitory room, he noticed that his was the only bed with the curtains drawn. "Cho?" he called.  
  
For an answer, the curtains on his bed parted–moved by the ghostly hand of Cho Chang.  
  
"You did it!"  
  
"And that's not all I can do," she replied. "But you owe me, Harry Potter."  
  
"For what?"  
  
"For having to put up with Peeves for the past couple of weeks. If you only knew the things I had to listen to..."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"It doesn't matter now. Let's just say he deserves a punch in the nose at least."  
  
"So how did you do that?"  
  
"You know how poltergeists always throw things? Some blame an excess of psychic energy; others say it's the emotional state of the poltergeist. In fact, it's all one–a combination of their energy and their attitude. They didn't just die with unfinished business; we all do that to some extent. But most poltergeists also have this colossal rage against the world. Maybe they had money troubles, maybe it was a love gone wrong. But their rage translates into energy. That's how they're able to toss things."  
  
"So, can you…" He looked around the dorm floor, and saw one of Ron's slippers. "Can you pick up that slipper, then?"  
  
"That's supposed to be too sophisticated for a poltergeist. Bear in mind that this is just brute psychic force. When I opened the drapes just now, it was because the energy in my hand had something to push against. The experts say that picking things up is too delicate for a poltergeist; they just sort of bat things around."  
  
"That means you can't, then?"  
  
For an answer, Cho floated over to Ron's chessboard, which was set up near the window. She lifted a pawn from the board, threw it across the room into Ron's slipper, floated back, picked up the slipper and let the piece fall into her outstretched hand.  
  
Harry was amazed. "But you just said…"  
  
"I told you what the experts think, but what do they know? After all, I'm not really a poltergeist."  
  
"But you said that a poltergeist moves stuff around with his anger."  
  
"No I didn't. I said they use emotion; anger just happens to be the commonest one."  
  
"And what about you?"  
  
"Harry," she smiled, "do you really have to ask what I feel, every minute of every day?"  
  
Harry started to reach for Cho, then stopped, and sat on his bed. "What did I do right to be worthy of you?" he smiled.  
  
"Whatever it is, you're still doing it, because I'm still here." After a moment, Cho's smile faded. "Only, now that I know the trick, I shouldn't stay here, should I?"  
  
"Wait till next week. I need to meet with Dumbledore once more. After that, we should both know what parts to play."  
  
"I think I know my part; I'm basically playing Seeker, aren't I?"  
  
Harry nodded. "It'll work; I'm sure of it."  
  
"Harry, lie back and close your eyes."  
  
"What for?"  
  
"I want to see if something else will work."  
  
Harry did as Cho asked. Then he felt–something. Something gentle, yet cold, passed over his face. He knew, without even looking, that Cho had tried to kiss him–and had failed. He opened his eyes and looked at Cho. "Sorry; it felt like the wind."  
  
She tried to smile, but her heart wasn't in it. "Well, it's a step closer. See you tomorrow, my love." She practically raced through the wall and out of Gryffindor.  
  
xxx  
  
The next day was a Saturday; no classes. Harry came down to breakfast and found Hermione idly picking at her own food.  
  
"Now who's got problems?" he said as he sat down.  
  
"You shouldn't gloat, Harry."  
  
"Sorry; didn't mean to. How are things at home?"  
  
"Ah. Well. They performed the second surgery, and they swear they got everything this time. Of course, that's what they said after the first operation. They're watching her, to make sure she's all right."  
  
"Is she?"  
  
"How can anyone be all right after something like that? Bad enough just to have that kind of operation. It changes the way you see yourself. At least she and Daddy can see each other every day and comfort each other."  
  
"What about you?"  
  
"What about … me?"  
  
"If you're off your feed, does that mean you don't…"  
  
"Don't what?"  
  
"Well, if you ever needed comforting…"  
  
"I'm going to say this once, and then I'll thank you not to inquire further into my business. It so happens that I have … someone I can talk to about all this, if I feel the need for, erm, comfort. And I'd rather just leave it at that." Before Harry could say anything else, she got up and left. Except that she'd forgotten her copy of "Advanced Potions and How to Brew Them Without Blowing Up Your Cauldron". She stopped at the door, turned back, walked to the Gryffindor table, picked up her book without a word to Harry, and walked out.  
  
xxx  
  
Monday started out with a double Care of Magical Creatures class, held indoor in one of the dungeons because the weather was turning colder. Draco Malfoy hung back with the other Slytherins, but seemed to have his eyes on Harry the whole time. Hagrid had brought in a box of Mokes and was trying to explain the unique properties of moke-skin, but Harry couldn't concentrate.  
  
After class, he heard it: "Wait a minute, Potter."  
  
Harry stood there, facing Draco as steadily as he could—which wasn't easy. The prospect of this being the message he had waited for left him both excited and terrified.  
  
"I hope you appreciate that my father thinks I'm a complete nuisance," Draco drawled, "but he's passed your message up the line and gotten back a reply. You'll be receiving word in a day or two from Lord Voldemort, and you'd better be prepared to meet him the same day."  
  
But now that he had delivered the message, Draco didn't leave. "Is there something else, Malfoy?"  
  
Draco looked around to see if there was anyone who could overhear them. "Look here, this feels awkward, but I know what you're trying to do. Do you really think you can take on the Dark Lord by yourself? Whole armies have fallen before him…"  
  
"That's ancient history, Malfoy."  
  
"You didn't do so well against him the last time."  
  
"He didn't do so well, either—even with a new body and his Death-Eaters to help."  
  
"And you think you've grown in power enough to defeat him. Don't you think he's grown in power too? Or do you think he's just sat idly by waiting for you?"  
  
"Why should you care?"  
  
"Because! Because, well, I remember you. I remember seeing you at Malkin's, when we were getting fitted for robes. I didn't think to ask your name, but I reckoned our paths would cross again. Actually, I hoped they would. I knew right away you were a wizard of considerable power, even if you hadn't the first idea of how to control it."  
  
Harry interrupted. "Look, you're making us both late, so say what you want to say."  
  
"What's going to happen?" Draco blurted out. "I have to know. What are you planning to do?"  
  
"Placing bets on the outcome, are you? I remember too, you know. I remember how you cheered on the attacks from the Chamber of Secrets. I remember how you applauded the murder of Cedric Diggory. If you want to find out what's going to happen, ask Madam Trelawny." Harry started out of the classroom.  
  
"You could win!" That stopped Harry with his hand on the door. "You've done some impressive stuff here. You're a great Seeker—fine, I'll admit to that. You've fought your way around or through hazards and spells I don't even want to remember. And I've had to face the possibility that you could defeat Lord Voldedmort."  
  
"Draco, I can't say anything about what may happen."  
  
"Potter, you're no help. What do I do?"  
  
"What are you asking me for? You make your own choices. You've chosen to follow in your father's footsteps. He wants power, he hates wizards who are less than pureblood, and he's stuck by his choice, whatever it may cost him. I've made my choice, and I'll stick to it no matter what. You have to do the same. Make a choice."  
  
"But which choice?"  
  
"It doesn't matter! Are you looking for a safe choice? Sorry, but there isn't one. Don't you see; there's going to be pain no matter what you choose. There's no avoiding it. So just grow up, make a choice and deal with the consequences." He turned his back on Draco and walked back to the door.  
  
"POTTER!" Harry stood still, waiting. When Draco spoke again, his voice was almost too soft to be heard. "What if it's … too late?"  
  
"There's no such thing," Harry said. "If you decide to do the right thing, you'll lose a few old friends along the way, but there'll always be someone to welcome you aboard." With that, he left Draco in the dungeon.  
  
…to be continued… 


	10. No Looking Back

WIZARDS DUEL: SIXTH YEAR by Patrick Drazen a/k/a monkeymouse  
  
3.10 No Looking Back  
  
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it.]  
  
Author's Note: In this chapter Draco quotes from one of the oldest songs in the English language, "The Three Ravens"  
  
xxx  
  
"Professor."  
  
"Yes, Harry?"  
  
It was the end of another Dark Arts class. Dumbledore had lectured about vampires, with an aside on Professor Quirrell and how he was possessed by Lord Voldemort a few years earlier. Now, once again, Harry and Dumbledore were alone in the classroom.  
  
"I, I've heard from someone. Someone who's been in contact with Voldemort."  
  
"Harry, it does you no good to hold back that person's name."  
  
"But that person's really not involved."  
  
"Your sense of honour is admirable, but it's worthless if it puts you in danger unnecessarily. Who is it?"  
  
Harry was silent.  
  
"It's a curious thing," Dumbledore said, "but for this minute I've stopped being headmaster. Whatever you say will have no repercussions."  
  
Harry still struggled with the truth, but finally said, "Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."  
  
"That would have been an easy guess. What did he say?"  
  
"That he passed my request to his father, who passed it on to Voldemort. I'll get an answer any time now."  
  
"And what do you conclude from this? Why would he wait three months to answer you?"  
  
"I don't know. Maybe he thought I wasn't worth it. Maybe he had other things to worry about."  
  
"And what if he did? What have you gleaned from the Daily Prophet lately?"  
  
Harry had to stop and think. He'd tried to follow the news of the wizarding world since the Battle of Hogsmeade, but articles in the paper were sometimes less than helpful. Dumbledore had to help Harry read between the lines of some of the clippings.  
  
"Let me see. The Ministry announced that some travel restrictions were being lifted. They said it was because things have eased up since Hogsmeade."  
  
"Do you think that's a plausible explanation?"  
  
"Well, things have been quiet lately. Except . I'm trying to remember . something about the Misuse of Magical Artifacts Department. It . No, it wasn't in the paper. Ron said that his father was complaining that his department's budget was being cut for the second year in a row. Says he can't do his job properly."  
  
"Then you think the Ministry's acted correctly in opening the borders?"  
  
"No, not at all! Arthur Weasley was also saying that he thinks someone inside the Ministry is working for Voldemort. He'd plan raids on the homes of suspected Death Eaters, but by the time his people got there, the place would be empty."  
  
"So back to the first article, then. What do you think the pieces of the puzzle look like?"  
  
"That they've relaxed the borders because . because ." Suddenly, Harry could see it. "They're letting Voldemort back into the country! He was hiding out somewhere until now. That's why he didn't send for me sooner, and why it's seemed so quiet."  
  
"Well reasoned. Harry. The most important question, is: Are you ready to face his summons?"  
  
"Yes." Dumbledore was scrutinizing Harry over his glasses. "At least, I'm almost sure."  
  
"Harry, we've already gone over this ground so thoroughly that there isn't much left to cover. There is, however, one question I've saved for last, and this seems to be the time to ask it. It concerns you and your parents."  
  
"Because Voldemort killed them, you mean?"  
  
"Indeed. I know that you spared Sirius when you had the chance to kill him, even though you thought he'd betrayed your parents. When you found out the truth and learned that it was all the fault of Peter Pettigrew, you were given the chance to kill him as well, and you didn't. However, you are asking Voldemort for a Wizards Duel. He will expect nothing less than a duel to the death. Are you prepared to take him on, even if it means killing him?"  
  
"This, well, I don't know. Last time he caught me by surprise. I've wanted him dead often enough, but if it comes down to doing it myself."  
  
"Believe me, Harry, this is not the time for play-acting. He will know if there is murder in your heart toward him. If he senses none, then he will be on his guard. He will be looking for signs of murderous hate in you; he will actually be hoping to see them. He will see your desire for death and revenge as a way to turn you. If he can use your strengths for his benefit or your failure, he will, Harry. While he revels in death and destruction, he also rejoices in perverting the good and the noble. That is a victory in his eyes.  
  
"The long and short of it is this: you must be angry enough to want him dead, and yet control that anger, so that you can do what you need to do. This is your last chance to tell me: do you think that you can do this?"  
  
"Yes, sir, I . I believe so."  
  
"I don't like the hesitation. That's why I brought you this." Dumbledore reached into a pocket of his robes and pulled out a roll of parchment. "A report from certain Aurors in the Ministry with whom I've stayed in contact over the years. This is their investigation of a Muggle named Arthur Vincie, who set off a bomb last August."  
  
Harry's hand shook as he reached for the parchment. He unrolled it and speedily read through it, until he found the words he was looking for. "'Evidence of Imperius.' Then he WAS acting under a Curse! Cho was killed by Death Eaters . trying to kill me." He let the parchment fall to the floor.  
  
"Harry?"  
  
It took a minute for Harry to answer. "Sorry, Professor. But I think I know how Sirius felt when Pettigrew betrayed my parents. He even said it was all his fault."  
  
The old wizard put a hand on Harry's shoulder. "I hope you know better than to believe that."  
  
"Well, Cho and I have talked about all that. But still, to actually know the truth of it."  
  
"It's just another trial, Harry, but you need to pass through it. Your despair, like your anger, must drive you without getting the better of you."  
  
"I'll be all right," Harry nodded.  
  
Dumbledore held out his hand for Harry to shake. Harry shook it. "Then I pronounce you ready, Mister Potter. Send word to me when the message comes. And good luck."  
  
"To all of us," Harry nodded.  
  
"Class dismissed." Without another word or another look at Harry, Dumbledore strode out of the classroom.  
  
A second later, the ghost of Cho Chang passed into the room through the shut door. "This is it, then?" she asked.  
  
Harry nodded. "I . I think you should go now."  
  
"Why not wait for the invitation?"  
  
"Because I may have to be there on a moment's notice, and then where would we be? They can't see anyone but me if this is to work."  
  
"Fine, then."  
  
"Cho-one quick question."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"What made Peeves a poltergeist, do you know? Did he tell you? Was it money? Was it love?"  
  
"It was magic, actually. He got his Hogwarts letter, let me see, about ninety years ago, but, when he got here, he turned out to be a Squib. Couldn't do much magic at all. He got through Hogwarts, by cheating, by relying on friends, by working just enough magic to pass his NEWTs. When he got out, though, there was nowhere for him to get a job except among the Muggles. He couldn't do much there, either, as it turned out. He wanted to be a wizard but couldn't, and he eventually threw himself off of London Bridge. He came back here because he blamed Hogwarts for not teaching him what he needed to know."  
  
"The reason I ask is, well, I don't care if something happens to me, but if something does happen, and we aren't in the same place, and I start looking for you."  
  
"Don't worry. Nothing will happen, and if it does, I'll find you."  
  
They looked at each other awkwardly for another minute.  
  
"Cho, I was right. The bomb that killed you; it was set by a Muggle. But a Death Eater made him do it. They were trying to kill me." Cho spent another minute thinking about that. "Cho, I am so sorry this happened to you."  
  
"Don't be," Cho smiled back. "It's just another one of their plans gone wrong, and that's always to the good. Besides, I meant what I said the day I came back here; I have always valued your life far above my own."  
  
Harry was speechless for the moment. "Harry, touch the desk."  
  
He put his hand flat on the teacher's desk. Cho put her ghostly hand partly on, partly through, Harry's hand. "I love you, Harry Potter."  
  
"And I love you, and I know I'll keep on loving you, no matter what happens."  
  
Cho removed her hand and passed through the classroom's closed door.  
  
***  
  
It took two days for anyone to miss Cho.  
  
"Harry," Neville asked at lunch, "have you seen Cho anywhere about? I wanted to ask her about my Divination essay."  
  
"No, come to think of it, I haven't seen her in a day or two. I'm sure she's around, though."  
  
"That's not what Moaning Myrtle says," Hermione interrupted. "She said this morning that she spent all yesterday looking high and low for Cho and didn't find her."  
  
"Well, it's a big castle."  
  
"Stop denying it, Harry; she seems to have gone. She didn't say anything about leaving, did she?"  
  
"Not to me. You figure she went on into that Great Mystery she talks about?"  
  
Hermione looked at Harry as if she were studying him; it made Harry feel uncomfortable. Then, she abruptly turned back to her food. "I don't know, I'm sure."  
  
xxx  
  
Snow started falling again two days later; this time, it left only a light dusting on the ground. The chill in the air left most students and faculty eager and upbeat; for Harry, it was just one more factor, one more piece on the board.  
  
The days were getting shorter and shorter. It was in near-twilight that the double Care of Magical Creatures class was returning from Hagrid's hut. The Gryffindor and Slytherin Sixth-Years had gone to see the shed skin of a Silkie. Malfoy loudly doubted that it was authentic, suggesting that it was the hide of some old cow.  
  
"Well, I'd like ter see yeh try it on, then," Hagrid answered back. "Ye'd be livin' half yer life as a seal in the water, but if ye think ye're man enough ter do it."  
  
Malfoy glared at Hagrid, but didn't say anything else.  
  
As they walked back to the castle, though, Malfoy fell back to walk beside Harry. "Fall back to the end," he muttered to Harry.  
  
Harry did so, becoming the last in line, and was joined by Draco a minute later. Before they got to the castle, they had broken off from the others and stepped just inside the Forbidden Forest.  
  
"What is it?" Harry asked.  
  
Draco wasn't looking at Harry. Even as he said, "I'm to give you this," and thrust a roll of parchment at him, he was facing away.  
  
Harry unrolled it, and read one sentence: "The churchyard at midnight."  
  
Harry had spent months preparing for this one sentence. Now that it was here, he felt as if his stomach would fall out. Still, he composed himself and walked away.  
  
"POTTER!"  
  
He had only walked about five paces from Draco when he heard the shout. He waited for Draco to say something else.  
  
"I think . I think I've made my choice."  
  
It took all his resolve to keep his back to Malfoy. All Harry said in reply was, "That's good for you, Draco, but I don't want to know what it is."  
  
"Damn you, Harry Potter! Why are you treating me like this?"  
  
Harry's resolve flew off into the sky as he turned on Draco. "You dare ask me why?! After everything you've said and done since the first minute I met you! I take back what I said about you and your father. You didn't want to be LIKE him; you wanted to be WORSE! For years you've hidden behind your father's power and influence and money and Pure Old Blood! People were getting HURT! People were DYING! And you didn't lift ONE DAMNED FINGER!" Tears of rage were blinding Harry; he turned on his heels and walked back toward the castle.  
  
He didn't even hear it coming; Draco shouted: "PETRIFICUS!"  
  
Harry was rooted to the spot. Even his eyes were fixed, unmoving, on Hogwarts castle ahead. He cursed himself for falling into an obvious trap- a trap he should have expected. He'd known for years that Draco Malfoy couldn't be trusted as far as you could throw a hippogriff.  
  
Malfoy stepped in front of Harry. But unlike the tears of rage on Harry's face, Draco wept tears of sorrow.  
  
"You were right, what you just said. I didn't care who got hurt, as long as I was on the winning side. I mean, it worked, didn't it? And I guess I was promised by my father, maybe not in so many words, that it would always be that way; that we would always be on top. And that's an easy opinion to hold when there's nothing to contradict you.  
  
"Well, there's been a lot to contradict me. It was there all along, I suppose, but I closed my eyes to it. But lately I've looked at Crabbe and Goyle and Pansy and Blustrode and the rest, and they just seem to me to be the sorriest bunch of bastards on earth. None of us really have anything; none of us will ever amount to anything-not unless we can drag the rest of the world down into a pit. That's the only way we can pretend to stand taller than the rest."  
  
These were the last words Harry expected to come out of the mouth of Draco Malfoy. He tried to look at him, but Draco kept pacing back and forth in front of him, passing in and out of his field of vision.  
  
"You know what really made me think about all this? Not whether you can beat the Dark Lord in a duel. I'm still convinced you can't. Dumbledore may be that strong-maybe. But he's getting old and feeble. No, Voldemort will control the world, there's no stopping that. But it's a cheap, drab and unhappy world that we'll be taking from you, leaving only Unforgivable Curses as common as breathing, and rigged Quidditch matches, and nothing at all resembling love.  
  
"Yes, you heard right, Potter; I've been thinking about love lately. Surprised me, too. Just comes with getting older, I guess. I've been thinking about life after Hogwarts, what I want to do, where I want to be. Mostly, though, I've been thinking about you and Cho Chang. Well, not about the two of you per se; honestly, your being with someone who's not white-makes my skin crawl. But she died, she was killed, and yet she came back and the two of you carried on like before. Made me stop and think. I thought about my parents; now there's a prize-winning pair. Probably had to put it on their calendars if they wanted to shag each other. And Pansy- to her I'm a Gringotts vault. Contrary to what you may think, I do not envy you your Quidditch prowess; you worked for some of that, and for the rest, it runs in the family. But you and Chang . It's like the old song says: 'God send every gentle man/Fine hawks, fine hounds and such a lovéd one.'"  
  
There was a commotion just past the tree line. "Looks like we have company. I'll release the spell as soon as I'm clear of you. Just remember what we talked about; that's all I ask. Just . remember." And Draco ran deeper into the Forbidden Forest.  
  
Ahead of him Harry could hear Ron and Hermione calling his name. The branches were rustling .  
  
and suddenly he could move again. In fact, he still had momentum from when he was walking; Harry fell on his face, breaking his glasses yet again.  
  
"HARRY!"  
  
Hermione ran up to him and started to help him to his feet.  
  
"What happened?" Ron asked as he picked up the pieces of Harry's glasses and handed them to Hermione to repair. "One minute you were right with us, and."  
  
"I was stopped by Draco."  
  
"WHAT! What did he do?"  
  
"Nothing, Hermione, relax. He Petrified me, and then he started talking . some sort of rubbish about the Dark Lord. Nothing I hadn't heard before."  
  
"You've got to be careful around him," Ron warned. "Types like him never change."  
  
Harry put on his repaired glasses. "I suppose." And the three went up to the castle.  
  
xxx  
  
Harry wanted to eat something, but couldn't. It was an ample feast, as always, but the dishes included three that brought Harry up short: Caribbean jerk chicken, chunks of mango, and pineapple juice.  
  
"This is FANTASTIC!" Lee Jordan shouted. "The house-elves never served it here before. I have to go home on holidays to get this."  
  
"Any idea what the occasion is?" Neville asked.  
  
Nobody knew; except Harry, and he wasn't talking.  
  
After dinner, he went to the library, and sought out the table in the International Magic section, where he had spent so much time with Cho. He stayed there, remembering, until closing time, then went up to the Astronomy Tower. The night was cold and clear, with no clouds between Harry and hundreds of stars. He found, though, that he couldn't remember anything; he couldn't think at all. He simply let his mind turn off for a bit while he bathed in the vision of all those stars. After a time that could have been three minutes or could have been thirty, he went down to his dormitory room, got into bed fully clothed and drew the curtains.  
  
At precisely half past eleven he opened the curtains again. The other curtains were drawn, and several kinds of snoring could be heard. Harry took a look around his dormitory room, knowing that, one way or the other, it would probably be his last look. He went into his wardrobe and drew out his dress robes, bought that summer at Madam Malkin's and never worn. He checked the pockets; the special device he had worked on with Dumbledore was in place. He placed his wand in his robe pocket, put his hat on his head, and walked out.  
  
As he tiptoed down to the Common Room, he saw two figures sitting together directly in front of the fireplace. Ron and Hermione. And, no matter how much Hermione might deny it to Harry in public, the way they were sitting- facing each other, knees touching, foreheads almost touching, holding hands- showed that there was some kind of deep bond between them.  
  
There wasn't much he could do with them in the room, but time wasn't going to stand still. He decided to head for the portrait hole.  
  
As he did, Hermione and Ron saw him immediately. "There's something happening, isn't there?" Ron asked.  
  
"Nothing for you to worry about."  
  
"Harry, do I have to prove you're lying?" Hermione asked. "Because I can, you know."  
  
"There's nothing to prove."  
  
"Oh, really? This isn't the first time you've lied to us. Let's start with Cho's disappearance. She's been gone for a week; nobody knows where she is or when she left. You ought to be either frantic with worry or deeply depressed. But you've just carried on as if nothing was wrong. It's as if she spoke to you about leaving before she left. Yet you've denied that she spoke to you. Which makes me think that her disappearance is something that the two of you worked out together."  
  
"Brilliant deduction, Hermione. You should go back to the Auror classes. I'm going now."  
  
"Not yet, you're not," Ron said as he and Hermione stood shoulder to shoulder before the portrait hole.  
  
"And why the dress robes at midnight?" Hermione asked. "It could be a date, but you would have to have gotten over Cho in a very short time."  
  
"Speaking of dates," Harry said, desperate to change the subject, "you two look like you'd rather be alone."  
  
"WHAT?" Ron and Hermione objected in unison.  
  
"No use denying it; I know a couple when I see one."  
  
"This is really not your affair-I mean, CONCERN!" Hermione sputtered.  
  
"Of course it is! You're my oldest friends here. And I'm glad to see the two of you together."  
  
"WE ARE NOT!" Ron objected.  
  
"Have it your way, then, but I'm sure you'd rather be with each other than with me."  
  
Ron and Hermione had a quick whispered conversation. This was making Harry nervous. He had to get to the meeting with Voldemort by midnight, and the time was getting close.  
  
"Here's what we'll do," Hermione finally said. "Stay until midnight; then you can go."  
  
This complicated everything. He'd have to keep them busy while trying to think of something.  
  
Harry moved a bit to their left. "You really just want me to stand around here?"  
  
Hermione eyed him warily, not moving at all. "What we don't want is for you to go off and get yourself killed."  
  
"Doing what?"  
  
"I don't know," Ron said, "but that business today with Draco has us on edge, and can you blame us? His family is in deep with You-Know-Who."  
  
"Y'know, Ron, just once I'd like to hear you say the name."  
  
"Stay here until midnight and I will."  
  
"All this talk of Voldemort is boring." Harry saw Ron wince when he said the name. He also glanced above the hearth. There was a magic picture of a sundial that kept accurate time, day and night. Harry had twenty minutes to go. He settled into a chair by the hearth, and so did the others. "Let's talk about you two."  
  
"Stop saying that!" Ron's face was almost as red as his hair. "We're not." He turned to Hermione and whispered, "What did you tell him?"  
  
"Me?" she whispered back. "What did YOU tell him?"  
  
"Hold it!" Harry said. "I figured it out; it wasn't hard, so don't go blaming each other for anything. I just want to say that I'm glad for you, and I hope it works out, because you two would get along great."  
  
Ron and Hermione both looked at Harry as if he was crazy. "You DO realize," Hermione said rather archly, "that we've managed to annoy each other almost since the day we met."  
  
"Can't always go by that, though. I think you work out fine when it comes to important things."  
  
"Such as?" Ron asked.  
  
"Ron, don't think I'm being obvious, but you're a Weasley. In a lot of ways, you're like your brothers and your dad. Charlie chases after dragons, Bill works spells for Gringotts, the twins have their joke shop. Percy's the only one who decided to have a family, and he's the most disciplined one of you."  
  
Hermione was nodding her head as Harry spoke, and turned to Ron. "Haven't we had exactly this same conversation."  
  
"Not now," Ron whispered back.  
  
"All I'm saying is that, Ron, you're a great friend, but I don't know if I'd trust you to pay the bills on time. You need some help in getting your life organized, and I can't think of anyone better to help you than Hermione."  
  
Hermione didn't say anything, but she blushed crimson.  
  
Harry turned to her. "Now it's your turn." The blush left as quickly as it had appeared. "Hermione, when I think of Hogwarts in the future, I'll think of you. You're like all four Houses rolled up into one. You've got brains enough for Ravenclaw, a Hufflepuff's determination to get the job done whatever it takes, a Gryffendor's bravery regardless of the odds, and you're not afraid to break any rule once you're convinced it needs breaking. Call that your Slytherin side."  
  
The blush was returning. "Harry . I don't know what to."  
  
"Wait for it; I'm not done yet." Out of the corner of his eye he looked at the sundial: ten minutes. "What you told me on the train this year was also true. You don't have much of a sense of humour. You're not spontaneous. It's not something you can learn from a book, but you can get there, and I recommend taking lessons from Ron Weasley."  
  
"Hold on!" Ron interrupted. "Are you saying that's all I'm good for."  
  
"Of course not, you idjit. You're just as brave and just as determined as Hermione is; I'd probably be dead now if you weren't. We've come through some amazing times here in this school, but we'll have to leave it, and then what? Hermione will go on to University, I expect."  
  
"That's always been my plan," she nodded, "and Professor Idylwyld said she'd help me when the time comes."  
  
"Yeh, but that's where we go our separate ways," Ron said. "I doubt I have the brains for university, and I know my parents haven't the money."  
  
Hermione turned to Ron with an exasperated look. "We've been over all this before. Your brains are a lot better than you give yourself credit for."  
  
"As for money," Harry added, "you never know. Your father could finally get a rise in salary, if Fudge ever sees the light. Or the money could just come along."  
  
"Fat chance of that," Ron snorted.  
  
"Stranger things have happened. If Cho's ghost could come back to Hogwarts, anything could happen."  
  
Five minutes.  
  
"Those are all logical reasons," Hermione conceded, "but I don't think they're any basis for, well, what you said..."  
  
"What, the two of you? Your feelings for each other are up to you; that's what you said, so I'm not going to say anything unless you tell me."  
  
"Well, if you really want to know how I feel."  
  
"RON!"  
  
"Look, Hermione, it isn't exactly a secret anymore. Not to Harry, anyway."  
  
"Not here and not now!"  
  
"Well, you don't need me for this," Harry said, getting up out of his chair, "so I'll just."  
  
He moved to the portrait hole. The others were out of their chairs in an instant, blocking the way.  
  
Two minutes.  
  
Ron folded his arms over his chest. "Look, Harry, we're just not going to let you out and that's that."  
  
"If you say so," Harry sighed, reaching a hand into a pocket in his robes. He found what he was looking for, then quickly spun around, dashed to the fireplace, drew the pinch of Floo Powder out of his pocket and threw it in the fire.  
  
"Little Hangleton Church!" he shouted as he jumped into the flames.  
  
.and disappeared.  
  
.to be continued. 


	11. The Battle of Little Hangleton

WIZARDS DUEL: SIXTH YEAR by Patrick Drazen a/k/a monkeymouse  
  
3.11 The Battle of Little Hangleton  
  
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it.]  
  
Author's Note: ~xxx~ indicates that the sentence was spoken in Parseltongue.  
  
xxx  
  
Harry tumbled out of the fireplace onto a plain area rug, threadbare and faded. The wooden floor under the rug was old and cracked, despite attempts over the ears to keep it up with wax and varnish.  
  
Since Floo Powder only works from hearth to hearth, it could not deliver him to the churchyard itself. Instead, he materialized in the fireplace that he had plugged into the network only hours before: the parson's office in the church of Little Hangleton. Harry glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner; one minute to midnight. He walked to the door and threw it open, so that he looked out onto the churchyard.  
  
Harry had prepared himself for this trip for months. He had tried to remember every detail of his last visit to the churchyard at Little Hangleton; the resting-place of Voldemort's father, a Muggle named Tom Riddle. He thought he recalled every detail of that night; he thought he was used to it.  
  
But Harry wasn't ready for the full impact of the churchyard-everything that had happened there, and everything that had happened later as a result. Harry thought that his stomach was going to sick up, and it wasn't being caused by the Floo Powder.  
  
The bell in the Little Hangleton church tower started to toll midnight.  
  
"Cut it rather close, didn't you, Harry? You were almost late to your own death."  
  
The shadowy, red-eyed face seemed disembodied as it moved through the tombstones and monuments of the churchyard, stopping by one child-sized angel lifting its stone arms up to Heaven. "You've been very persistent, I'll have to give you that."  
  
"Where are the others?" Harry said as he stepped out of the church and into the graveyard.  
  
"What others? You asked to see me, didn't you?"  
  
"You think you're finally going to kill me tonight, and you'd want your Death Eaters around to cheer you on. It's just not in you to do something so important by yourself."  
  
For a second, the smile vanished from Voldemort's deathly face, and his eyes glowed a bit redder. Then he calmed himself and gave a tilt of the head. Silent as ghosts, Death Eaters began moving toward the church from the edges of the cemetery. Harry could make out a few faces: Walden McNair. Peter Pettigrew, rubbing his silver hand as if it still hurt him to sacrifice his old hand for this one. Lucius Malfoy.  
  
And-Harry could feel his own heart deflate like a pierced balloon-Severus Snape.  
  
"I guess you fancy yourself quite the expert on me by this time," Voldemort sneered. "Have me already figured out, have you, or is there something you still want to know?"  
  
Harry held down his revulsion and kept his voice as steady as he could. "I only want one thing from you, Tom Riddle: a Wizard's Duel."  
  
Everyone in the cemetery broke into gales of laughter. But this was laughter made of scorn and contempt, not of delight or surprise. This laughter was a mockery.  
  
Voldemort stayed silent until the laughter died down. He didn't so much as smile. "Tom Riddle lies under that stone," he said, pointing to the grave he and Wormtail had defiled some two years ago to create a body for Voldemort. "I do not recognize that name; you would do well to remember that."  
  
"It's the name you were born with; you ought to be used to it by now."  
  
Voldemort raised his hand as if to strike Harry, then checked himself. He showed the strain of keeping his voice under control when he spoke: "I shouldn't have expected any different. You insist on playing games with me, like the schoolboy that you still are. You've never been in a real Wizard's Duel, have you?"  
  
"Accept the challenge or not, Riddle; or else your followers there will think you're a coward stalling for time."  
  
This time Voldemort lashed out, slapping Harry across the face, sending his glasses flying into the tall grass on the unkempt graves and leaving scratches on his cheek that started oozing blood. "You will show me the respect you owe to me!"  
  
"And you will answer: yes or no!"  
  
At an imperceptible signal McNair and Malfoy grabbed Harry's arms, holding him immobile. Voldemort punched Harry in the stomach, with a blow that had the force of four men. Harry collapsed to his knees, whereupon Voldemort kicked Harry in the ribs; Harry felt a bone break within him, and the Death Eaters heard it break. Still, Harry swallowed his urge to scream out and looked at Voldemort. "Yes or no..."  
  
"YES! Yes, damn you, I accept, for all the good it will do you."  
  
Harry crawled slowly to the nearest tombstone, and leaned on it to get to his feet. There was scattered snickering from the Death Eaters, but-Harry hoped he wasn't imagining it-they sounded distinctly nervous.  
  
"I have one question," Harry gasped out when he was standing, his breath shuddering from the pain. "Cornelius Fudge is really dim-the worst kind of Minister of Magic. His decisions have helped you all along, whether he meant them to or not. Why did you try to have him killed?"  
  
"Oh, only partly because he was going to sign an alliance pact with the giants. Fudge was falling more and more under the spell of Amos Diggory. Seems he took it personally when I had his son killed. Spent all his time nosing around the Ministry, looking for my allies there. He even found one or two low-grade wizards in my employ. But he'd been looking harder and harder at Walden McNair, and I simply couldn't afford to lose him."  
  
Voldemort stepped away from Harry. "About that duel, then. Are you ready?"  
  
"Not until we choose a second."  
  
"Well, if I recall how this game is played, you threw down the challenge, so I get to choose first. Just a formality, of course, but I name as my second."  
  
Voldemort's glowing eyes scanned the assembled Death Eaters. Harry prayed that it wouldn't be Wormtail that he chose. He saw Voldemort fix his gaze for a long, unnerving minute on Snape, before he announced his choice:  
  
"Lucius Malfoy!"  
  
Harry let out a sigh that was partly of relief, and partly because of the pain of his broken rib. Even though he felt that he was going to faint, he pulled himself up straight. "And, for the purposes of this duel, I name as my second-Peter Pettigrew."  
  
The Death Eaters started laughing again-all but one. Wormtail, a long ago friend of Harry's parents who had betrayed them to Voldemort, shook his head violently. "You can't do that! I won't!"  
  
"You will!" Harry shouted over his objections. "I could have killed you three years ago in Hogsmeade; I had the chance, and I chose to let you live. Without that choice, neither you nor your master would be alive today. You owe me a debt."  
  
"Lies! I owe you nothing!"  
  
Severus Snape stepped forward. "Need I remind you that I was there, and witnessed those events? Mister Potter may be the most foolish wizard I've ever known, but he speaks the truth. It won't mean a thing five minutes from now, but for the moment, you are in his debt."  
  
"Master!" Wormtail turned to Voldemort.  
  
"It doesn't matter," Voldemort said. "When he dies, as he surely will die, you debt will have been discharged. I hardly expect you to pick up his wand and continue the battle against me, especially since you know full well what I am capable of doing to you."  
  
"Yes, Master," Wormtail shuddered. "I know."  
  
"Then you will be his second."  
  
Harry reached into his robes, but the wand seemed to be stuck in the lining- that or he was very nervous. He fumbled with it for a few seconds, then the wand fell out of his robes onto the grass. "Pick that up, Pettigrew."  
  
"I already have a Master," Pettigrew hissed at Harry.  
  
"Yes," Voldemort spoke up, "and for the purposes of the duel, he is your Master. Do as he says."  
  
Grumbling, Peter reached for the wand with the silver arm he had been given.  
  
"Stop!" Everyone looked at Harry, who, after his outburst, tried to sound nonchalant. "Use your other hand; I wouldn't want you to scratch it."  
  
Several of the Death Eaters chuckled. Pettigrew angrily turned toward Voldemort. "Master, I shouldn't be forced to amuse this pup!"  
  
"You're not," Voldemort answered smoothly. "You're doing it to amuse me. Do as he says."  
  
Pettigrew grumbled, turned back to the wand, looked at Harry and said, "I do this only because I owe you a debt. Once I've handed you this wand, the duel begins, you will die and that debt will be paid."  
  
He touched the wand-and Pettigrew and the wand both vanished.  
  
Harry closed his eyes and sighed contentedly. "Paid in full."  
  
"What's the meaning of this?"  
  
"A page from your book, Tom. You turned the Triwizard Cup into a Portkey to bring me here years ago. So I built a Portkey that looks like my wand. I had to be careful not to touch it myself, but Peter touched it, and that's all that matters. It's taken Peter somewhere special."  
  
"Where?"  
  
"Just a room in the Ministry. In that room are Remus Lupin to suggest questions, Alastor Moody who knows how to ask them, a couple of Animagic Aurors who can turn into cats if Peter tries to escape, a couple of Dementors to remind Peter of how serious this is, and a very large bottle of Veritaserum."  
  
"And what is the point of all this?"  
  
"Like Peter, I'm paying a debt. In this case, proving that Sirius Black was innocent of the killings for which he was imprisoned. Within the hour, Peter Pettigrew will have confessed to the lot, and Sirius will be a free man again. Oh, don't worry; they won't ask about you, and we won't be disturbed."  
  
Voldemort stared at Harry for a minute, his eyes smoldering. Then they narrowed, and something like a smile came to his lips. "Quite a combination, Potter; resourcefulness and an unshakeable sense of purpose. As you can perhaps tell," he gestured to the Death Eaters circling just beyond the firelight, "truly talented wizards are in such short supply these days. Throw in your lot with me, Harry, and you'll get your true wish: a short, bloodless battle, sparing the rest of the world an all-out war. I know that means more to you than all the power at stake, so think of it as the best of both worlds."  
  
It sounded like Voldemort was agreeing to Harry's conditions-until he remembered Voldemort's preference for lying. "If I throw in with you, there's still the rest of the world to think of. There's still the whole point of life."  
  
"So. Sixteen years old and already you've worked out the guiding principles of the universe."  
  
"Didn't you? Weren't you about my age when you decided what runs the world?"  
  
"And what answer did you arrive at? I'd love to hear it."  
  
"Funny you should say that. From everything I've seen, love is what's important. Love is the reason for our lives and the purpose for our magic."  
  
"You choose love, Harry Potter? Then you're just another fool. Love only means physical exhaustion, mental distraction and a refusal to see things for what they truly are. Power, Mister Potter, is the only reality."  
  
"It wasn't power that stopped you killing me all those years ago, was it?"  
  
"Of course it was. Just because your mother used it doesn't automatically make it love."  
  
~Margaret would surely be disappointed to hear all that. Or is that what you called her? Maybe she wanted you to call her something more familiar, like Maggie, or Meg.~  
  
"What's the meaning of this?"  
  
~You honestly don't know? And they say you never forget your first.~  
  
"Why are you talking like that?"  
  
~I just didn't want to embarrass you in front of your followers. What would they think about Lord Voldemort having sex?~  
  
Voldemort was literally speechless; he tried to speak, but no sounds came.  
  
~Where did it happen, I wonder? The greenhouses? The Owlery? Some deserted classroom after hours? Maybe some dormitory in Slytherin House. Why not tell us where Margaret Hawksaw shagged you, Tommy. I'll bet she called you Tommy. Sounds so much friendlier than Thomas or.~  
  
Voldemort pointed his wand and let loose a blast of energy that missed Harry by an inch. Instead it hit the tombstone he was leaning on and blasted it into dust. As quickly as he could (which was none too quickly with a broken rib and no glasses), Harry crawled through the grass to hide behind another tombstone.  
  
Voldemort was beside himself with rage now. "You wanted a duel, Potter; let it begin! Nihilo!"  
  
The second tombstone vanished as well. Harry hardly had time to draw his own wand as he kept low to the ground, moving behind first one tombstone and then another.  
  
until he moved right into Lord Voldemort.  
  
Voldemort stepped on Harry's wrist, pinning his wand hand to the ground, forcing Harry to let go of his wand.  
  
"Now, some business I should have taken care of years ago. There'll be no pesky Priori Incantatem this time." Voldemort raised his wand arm, pointing the wand at Harry's chest, and.  
  
"Expelliarmus!"  
  
The wand flew out of Voldemort's hand and came to rest in the hand of Draco Malfoy, who was standing against the wall of the church.  
  
Lucien Malfoy didn't hesitate. Draco was standing just below a plinth that held a statue of a gargoyle. With a shout of "Nihilo!" Lucius blasted the plinth into dust, sending the gargoyle statue down to crush his son.  
  
It all happened so fast, Harry couldn't have stopped it if he wanted. He crawled over to Draco, who was still breathing, though his breath was raspy.  
  
He turned his face to Harry, and even now he wore his familiar smirk. "What . do you think . of my choices . now, Potter?" Before Harry could answer, Draco's eyes glazed over in a fixed stare, and his chest collapsed under the weight of the gargoyle.  
  
Harry felt empty; drained of all life. He turned to Lucien Malfoy, who stood where he was, arms folded across his chest, face impassive.  
  
"He . was your son. Your only son. How could you?"  
  
"I'd seen this coming for almost a year now. He was always a difficult boy, but he hadn't thought to defy the Dark Lord until recently. I believe we have you to thank for that."  
  
"No. He woke up on his own. He saw the kind of world you really want, and he wanted no part of it. I never thought to try to change him; I didn't think I could. He tried to tell me something about what he felt the other day but . I didn't understand."  
  
"Neither did Draco, in the end. My Master was right; there is no love; only power."  
  
Voldemort stepped forward to stand in front of Harry. "And this is a point we can debate further. Oh, by the way, Harry-Crucio."  
  
Pain rushed through Harry's body like flood waters. He'd felt it before, when Voldemort had been revived. But, because he had survived it, he knew he could stand it again. The pain had died down, but not completely been suppressed, when Voldemort spoke again.  
  
"Let's talk about Margaret. A name from a chapter in my life I considered to be long dead and buried. What, exactly, do you know about it?"  
  
"We traced her back because of Megan."  
  
"Megan?"  
  
"The last Dark Arts teacher."  
  
"What's she to do with it?"  
  
Harry couldn't believe it; he didn't know! "You must have hated Hogwarts for what they did to Margaret; or did you think they were punishing you and not her?"  
  
"Tell me about Megan!"  
  
"Megan . Hawksaw. Margaret's granddaughter-and yours."  
  
Harry had never seen such a look of confusion on anyone's face. He knew that Voldemort was only just putting the pieces together. Harry went on as best he could: "Surely you knew they sent her off to be with family in Canada."  
  
"Dippet refused to tell me where she'd gone, or why. So; where is Megan now?"  
  
Harry saw his chance to get a little of his own back. "Ask Lucius Malfoy."  
  
Voldemort turned. "Is there something you want to tell me, Lucius?"  
  
"My Lord," he began nervously, "you advised us to seek out other faculty at Hogwarts who might be turned."  
  
"But why didn't you tell me about the only one who was my own flesh and blood?"  
  
Lucius was silent.  
  
"Was this the witch you spoke of, who drained her life into the elemental spell that was supposed to ensure that Hogsmeade was destroyed?"  
  
"My Lord, she offered up her own life."  
  
"Can it be, perhaps, that, in my absence, Lucius Malfoy had decided to command the Death Eaters on his own?"  
  
Lucius, who still didn't meet Voldemort's eyes, knelt in the cemetery. "I ask your mercy, My Lord."  
  
"And you shall have it. Avada Kedavra."  
  
As Harry watched in shock, Voldemort killed Lucius Malfoy. The body remained kneeling.  
  
But the instant Harry's thoughts turned to Lucius and Draco, the pain of the Cruciatus grew larger and larger. He had to concentrate to beat it back--and Voldemort knew this.  
  
"Getting tired, Harry?" he sneered. "I must say I'm impressed. You're putting in a great deal of effort. It's a shame it will all count for nothing in the end.  
  
"You see, Harry, that's what I learned about life, and about love. Nothing lasts, and whatever your labours may be, they count for nothing in the long run. So your average wizard has only two choices in life: seize whatever power you can, or give in and follow whatever power you find."  
  
Voldemort leaned his face down until it was an inch from Harry's.  
  
~You wanted to know about Margaret. All I'll tell you is that she used me for her pleasure, just as I used her for mine. That's all that love comes down to in the world: we use each other. I'm sure that, if you were at all honest with yourself, you'd admit that you were always more interested in your own pleasure than in your girlfriend's. That neither of you could be totally honest with the other. That your Miss Cho Chang was just your convenient little piece of.~  
  
Harry lunged at Voldemort, who sidestepped him easily. But enraging Harry had served its purpose: it broke Harry's concentration, and the pain of the Cruciatus came back like a tidal wave. Harry, still without his glasses, felt that red lights were going off behind his eyes and that, in just a minute, blindness would add to the pain.  
  
"I won't kill you straightaway," Voldemort told Harry. "I'll let the Cruciatus work its magic on you first, pushing your body through fiercer and fiercer pain. I'll let you live, until you are in such agony that you will beg me to kill you."  
  
"STOP THIS!"  
  
Everyone turned and looked as Albus Dumbledore made his way between the tombstones.  
  
Voldemort gave a mocking bow. "Looks like we've both come up in the world since those early days. From Transfiguration master to Headmaster. Congratulations."  
  
"Thank you. I haven't yet decided whether your path has taken you up, down or sideways."  
  
"It has brought us together here, and that's all that matters."  
  
"It didn't have to come to this. Even at this late hour, you have a chance of avoiding your own destruction."  
  
"Ah, the offer of redemption. It used to be a favorite tactic of that fool Dippet."  
  
"Armando Dippet was a good teacher, a good Headmaster and a good man. He simply wasn't up to the challenge of you."  
  
"So I'm a challenge, now? I should have thought I was a hazard, at the very least."  
  
Dumbledore looked at Harry, still crumpled in pain on the ground. "I see I have a student out of bounds."  
  
"Two students, actually," Voldemort smirked, gesturing toward the gargoyle and the body pinned underneath it.  
  
Dumbledore walked over to the body, and stood there for a long minute. When he turned again to Voldemort, it appeared he had been crying. "Why?"  
  
"Oh, I assure you, it was all a matter of self-defense. He burst into our gathering unannounced, waving his wand like a madman and threatening us all. Just to be clear about it, he was killed by his own father."  
  
"Lucius Malfoy? Is he here?"  
  
"Yes, but you might find him a bit uncommunicative. I found that he had crossed me, and I just can't have that."  
  
Dumbledore's eyes ran over the faces of the Death Eaters, some of whom tried to hide their faces. Severus Snape, however, stood still and looked at Dumbledore without flinching.  
  
"You don't seem surprised to see your Potions Master here."  
  
"Why should I be surprised?" Dumbledore sighed again. "I've seen him in your company before."  
  
"Indeed. Have you come to offer your services to me as well?"  
  
"I have come to ask only one thing of you: to ransom Harry Potter."  
  
"But we were getting along so well. Besides, what do you hope to accomplish with him alive?"  
  
"Consider it symbolic. Others may be more powerful, but Harry is the most important wizard we have."  
  
"And why should I surrender him to you?"  
  
"Because I'm willing to give you something that you need in exchange."  
  
Voldemort smiled. "This should be very interesting. What do you have that I could possibly want, much less need?"  
  
"Oh, we both know the answer to that." At that moment, a deep, throaty flute-like sound rang through the air of the churchyard. Out of the sky shot Fawkes, Dumbledore's pet phoenix, who perched on Dumbledore's shoulder.  
  
"Think of it," Dumbledore said, stroking the bird's crimson feathers. "The tears of a phoenix heal the most devastating wounds. The blood of a phoenix grants eternal life. After your years wandering in the wilderness, you probably wouldn't want to return to that life. Besides, Fawkes here gave a feather as the core to your wand."  
  
"And to Harry Potter's wand, unless I'm mistaken."  
  
"So the question is: who would you want to own the phoenix?"  
  
"Professor, no!" Harry had managed to fight the pain back enough to speak. "I'm not worth it!"  
  
"Ah, but you are, Harry," Dumbledore sighed. "Which is why we hid you among the Muggles for all those years. It was a sorry way of life for a wizard, but it kept you safe."  
  
"But if he gets Fawkes, none of us will be safe!"  
  
"Give me a little credit, Harry. Would I have walked into the middle of this gathering if I didn't have the ability to walk back out again? Some of us still have the power to withstand the Dark Lord."  
  
"Shall we put it to the test, then?" Voldemort asked, eyeing Fawkes hungrily.  
  
"Only if you remove the Cruciatus from Harry."  
  
"But why? It's only pain; it's not as if the curse is doing any real damage."  
  
"Humour me," Dumbledore smiled.  
  
Voldemort shrugged and waved his wand. Harry's body, curled into a ball of pain, straightened out like a spring just let loose. He found his wand and pointed it at the tombstones. "Accio glasses." Harry's glasses flew back into his hand.  
  
Harry staggered to his feet-the broken rib was still stabbing him with pain. He walked over to Dumbledore. "You can't do this! There's got to be another way!"  
  
"Face the facts, Harry Potter. You wanted to stop me single-handed, and your life turned out to be worth less than a bird's!" Voldemort was standing next to the statue of the angelic child now. "Send him to me!"  
  
Fawkes, with a single beat of his wings, rose off of Dumbledore's shoulder, and settled on Voldemort's. As soon as he did so, Voldemort pointed his wand at Harry: "Expelliarmus!"  
  
Harry's wand shot over and landed in Voldemort's hand. He now held both of the wands whose core contained feathers from Fawkes.  
  
"This game is over!" Voldemort shouted triumphantly, spreading his arms wide. "Behold the true power of the wizarding world!"  
  
"Indeed," Dumbledore said calmly.  
  
At that moment, the statue of the angel child snatched the wands out of Voldemort's hand.  
  
The ghost of Cho Chang, who had been hiding in the statue for almost a week, rose up out of the statue, still holding the wands. "Professor!" she called out, and threw the wands to Dumbledore.  
  
No sooner did Dumbledore catch them than he snapped both wands in two.  
  
Harry didn't know if that caused what happened next, or if Fawkes, an exceptionally clever bird, divined what the plan was. The instant the wands snapped, Fawkes fulfilled the destiny of a phoenix, bursting into a brilliant fireball that was visible for a mile.  
  
Voldemort's robes caught fire as if they were rags soaked in kerosene. His high-pitched scream made everyone wince-everyone except Harry. While the Death Eaters ran in panic from their master, Harry threw himself at Voldemort, pinning his arms to his side and hanging on.  
  
Dumbledore raised his wand. "NO!" Harry shouted at him. "It's got to be complete. Nothing left this time."  
  
Voldemort grabbed Harry's robes, vainly trying to pull the boy off of him. "We'll go together," the Dark Lord gasped; "We'll both go."  
  
Harry acted as if the fire didn't affect him. "After you."  
  
By now, the Dark Lord no longer had ears to hear Harry's reply, nor tongue to answer in kind. His charred body fell in pieces away from Harry, whose robes were also almost burned away and whose skin was severely charred. He stood over the burning corpse of Voldemort, swaying, half conscious, but still talking to Dumbledore: "Make sure . nothing left." until finally Harry lost consciousness and fell to the ground.  
  
Dumbledore extinguished the flames that were still alive on Harry. Cho was by his side at once. "How is he?"  
  
"More dead than alive, I'm afraid. Madam Pomfrey will have her work cut out for." The voice caught in Dumbledore's throat as if he were choking; then Cho heard Dumbledore's hoarse whisper: "By the hair of Merlin's dog!"  
  
As the ashes of what was once Lord Voldemort were picked up by the wind and scattered, never to be assembled again, the lightning-bolt scar on Harry Potter's forehead visibly faded. Soon, it was clean, smooth and as unscarred as the day he was born.  
  
.to be concluded. 


	12. Endings and Beginnings

WIZARDS DUEL: SIXTH YEAR by Patrick Drazen a/k/a monkeymouse  
  
3.12 Endings and Beginnings  
  
[If you found your way this far, you don't need me to tell you that JK Rowling created the Potterverse, and is still creating it.]  
  
"There are no happy endings, because nothing ends." from The Last Unicorn  
  
xxx  
  
Harry could hardly see, could hardly move, and had trouble hearing. But he recognized the voice of Madam Pomfrey. "It's amazing that he's lasted this long."  
  
"The last bit of his mother's protection. Without it, he surely would have died with Voldemort." Dumbledore's voice. Harry vaguely wondered who they were talking about.  
  
"Frankly, he may as well have died. You should have sent him to the Special Wing. I can ease the pain, but I don't think I can do much more."  
  
"I've heard that . somewhere before," Harry muttered as he tried to wake himself up.  
  
Then he realized: he was in Stasis. He remembered the fight against Voldemort, how the Dark Lord's own fear of death had led him to amass so much power. How that fear also tempted him to covet the phoenix Fawkes, which proved his undoing. And how he-Harry Potter-could only stop Voldemort from saving himself if Harry put his own life on the line.  
  
"Congratulations, Mister Potter, but you really must get over this chronic habit of leaving the rest of us in your debt."  
  
Harry's eyes-one of them bandaged-went wide at the voice. He actually tried to crawl away, even though he couldn't move anything.  
  
"Rest easy, Harry," Dumbledore said in his usual kindly manner. "Professor Snape has accomplished his mission, as you have accomplished yours."  
  
"He . was there ."  
  
"As he was supposed to be," Dumbledore nodded. "Many were tempted to become Death Eaters, and some repented their actions. Severus Snape took the extraordinary step of becoming a double agent: pretending to be a Death Eater, but secretly keeping the Ministry informed of Voldemort's plans. He even sabotaged some of those plans himself."  
  
"But . Hogsmeade ."  
  
Snape spoke up: "I had no intention of letting the town lose one home or one life. My anger at you and Miss Chang was partly because of Sirius Black's involvement, and partly because your meddling might have compromised my own position."  
  
"Then, that business with the complaint, and the leave of absence."  
  
"Oh, that was all quite genuine," Dumbledore nodded. "We merely decided to take advantage of the timing. It allowed Severus to shift his base of operations from Hogwarts to Voldemort's inner circle."  
  
Harry now noticed that Snape had something pinned to his robes; he recognized it as the Order of Merlin, First Class. Snape noticed Harry's gaze, and gave his approximation of a smile. "Ironic, isn't it, Mister Potter? Voldemort-and Megan Hawksaw, for that matter-preached that you should trust no one. They should have paid more attention to their own advice."  
  
The ghost of Cho Chang floated in through the wall, past the assembled Hogwarts faculty and over to Harry's bedside. "Harry my love, you were magnificent."  
  
"You too."  
  
Dumbledore cleared his throat for attention. "Now that you are both here, I have something to say. All the gold of Gringotts couldn't begin to pay what we owe the both of you. Therefore, instead of the coin of the Realm, I can give you whatever you may wish, through whatever my magic can accomplish. You have but to ask."  
  
Harry shifted in his bed. "I'll tell you the truth, Professor. I don't think life has many thrills to offer me any more. It certainly doesn't offer me Cho." He turned to the ghost. "Part of me wants-desperately wants-to go with you. Into the Great Mystery, as you call it, or even hang about here as a ghost myself. I want us to be together, but I feel like there's something I have to do here first."  
  
Professor Flitwick spoke as best he could through his tears. "I wish you weren't going, Harry," he blubbered. "You still could teach us all a thing or two."  
  
"Never fancied myself a teacher," Harry said, barely above a whisper. "But maybe..."  
  
"Does this mean you're willing to stay?" Dumbledore asked. "The magic is here, if you wish it."  
  
Harry turned to Cho. "No offense, Cho, but everything I've done here, even Quidditch, has been with someone else's help. I feel like I need to help someone else, the way others have helped me..."  
  
"Oh, Harry," Cho interrupted, "stop being such a typical male. You're taking forever to get where you're going because you won't let anyone show you the way." Cho turned toward the others. "Harry wants what I want, even if he can't say it yet. I'm just afraid it's, well, rather a tall order."  
  
"Tall orders are easy," Dumbledore smiled; "the impossible takes an extra day or two. What is your wish, Miss Chang?"  
  
She bowed her head and bit her lip, and a small cloud of silver blush came to her cheeks. "I want a child," she smiled. "I want Harry's child."  
  
Harry stared at Cho for a second, then chuckled and shook his head. Cho had gotten it exactly right. "No offense to any of you, but a parent is also a teacher. I never really knew that, because I never knew my parents. Well, I think that's the best kind of teacher I can become. I know I'm being selfish, but that's the only way I'd want to stay on earth: if I could be with Cho, and if I could help to raise our child...a child who's as beautiful and as clever and as full of love as her mother. Does that make me selfish?"  
  
"No worse than me, because I'm just as selfish," Cho, gazing lovingly at Harry, continued the thought. "I want only to be united again on earth with Harry Potter, to conceive his child in love, to give birth to that child in joy, and to raise that child to be as brave and as wise and as compassionate as her father."  
  
Hagrid was loudly blowing his nose into a grimy-looking handkerchief the size of a tablecloth.  
  
Dumbledore stepped forward. "This is a very serious thing you are asking. Spells to return the dead to life take the greatest toll imaginable, and are often requested for the most selfish reasons. But in this case, you have demonstrated such greatness of spirit that even the Ministry would agree with me: you deserve no less.  
  
"Just as there are forbidden curses which blight the will and inflict pain and death, so there are spells that draw their power from life and from love. Harry, surely you realize this, for until recently you carried the mark of such love on your forehead. Because they are the most powerful spells of all, they are also highly classified. Only a few may perform them, and, since I am the only one in this room with proper clearance from the Ministry, the rest of you should exchange your final words with the happy couple before they set off."  
  
Madam Pomfrey didn't rush to Harry's side-after all, it was HER infirmary and she wasn't going anywhere yet-but the rest of the faculty crowded around the bed, wishing Harry and Cho good luck.  
  
Madam Hooch looked like she was trying to keep herself under very tight control. "I'll be waiting," was all she said before she strode briskly out of the ward.  
  
Hagrid stepped up next. "Well, I don't rightly know what the Perfessor's got up his sleeve, but it's like I said before. He's never lied to me, so I 'spects I'll see yer again right enough." One more sniffle, and Hagrid jammed the kerchief into one of his bottomless pockets. "So, like Olympe would say, this ain't 'adoo', but 'orry voyer.'"  
  
"Au revoir, Rubeus Hagrid," Cho smiled.  
  
"Professor Rubeus Hagrid," Harry corrected her, "my first teacher in the wizarding world, and my first friend."  
  
Professor Snape hung back to be the last to speak. "Miss Chang, in the matter of your assault after the Battle of Hogsmeade; the headmaster punished you as he saw fit, and I have nothing to add--except that, perhaps, in this case, the punishment exceeded the crime. As this is probably my last chance to do so, I beg your pardon."  
  
Cho rose, clasped her hands and bowed from the waist. "Your very gracious apology is accepted."  
  
He turned towards Harry, who spoke first: "Excuse me for not bowing to you myself."  
  
A bit of the old fire flared up in Snape's eyes, but only for a few seconds. "For six years now, you have dodged, evaded, insulted, tweaked, scorned, spurned and dismissed my every attempt to teach you anything useful to even the most unskilled wizard. But there was one thing you did not teach me until quite recently: that, in looking at you and seeing James Potter, I was horribly mistaken. In all humility, I ask your forgiveness."  
  
Harry raised the less wounded of his two hands, which Professor Snape shook gingerly. "Of course, Professor; no harm done."  
  
The sound of running footsteps echoed in the corridor, headed for the open infirmary door. Suddenly a figure in new black robes stood in the doorway.  
  
"SIRIUS BLACK!" Madam Pomfrey screamed.  
  
"What are you doing here, Sirius?" Snape snarled.  
  
"Reporting for work, of course," Sirius said, striding quite jauntily into the room and smiling at one and all. "Seems the Headmaster has offered me the post teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts."  
  
"This is a joke!"  
  
"No it's not, Severus, and neither is this." He pulled a scroll out of his robes and handed it to Snape. He unrolled, read and started sputtering like a cauldron over a high fire.  
  
"A .a PARDON?!"  
  
"Full, free and absolute," Dumbledore smiled. "I received your owl a while ago telling me, but it's so gratifying to see it set down in parchment, isn't it?"  
  
"But, how."  
  
"Pettigrew finally confessed to framing me all those years ago. Remus Lupin was there to back it up. Fudge didn't have a choice, really." Sirius took back his scroll from the astounded Snape. "Yes, one of Fudge's last acts as Minister."  
  
"Last acts?" Pomfrey asked.  
  
"He's stepping aside-for reasons of health; that's the official line, anyway. Fact is, he's made nothing but wrong decisions since this all began.  
  
"Harry, I." Sirius paused, seeing the heavily bandaged, barely alive form of his godson. When he spoke again, it was more softly. "Got something to show you." He brought that something out of his robes. "Yew," he smiled. "Thirteen inches long exactly. Heartstring of a dragon, and I never felt anything so wonderful in my life. Harry, I don't know just how you did it, but you did it. You gave me my life back."  
  
"As much as you gave me, it's only fair. You'll take care of those other things I asked you?"  
  
"First thing in the morning," he smiled. Turning to Snape, he said, "So, where do I park my motorcycle?"  
  
Snape's eyes were frosty as ever, but his voice carried amusement as he said, "Just don't let it loose in the Forbidden Forest. We've got a wild Ford Anglia in there; they could mate and produce a litter of motorized Muggle monstrosities."  
  
Sirius roared with laughter as he clapped Snape on the back. "I think I'm going to like being back here."  
  
Finally, there was only the three of them-Harry, Cho and Albus Dumbledore. "Children, there are several ways of bringing the dead back to life, although each requires a bit of a sacrifice. Miss Chang, were you buried or cremated?"  
  
"Cremated."  
  
"Ah. Well, that lets Re-animation right out. Just as well, too; it tends to get rather messy. There is also the Exchange method. As the name suggests, a living person surrenders his life force to bring back the dead."  
  
"Which living person?" Harry asked.  
  
"In this case, it would be me."  
  
"I take back my wish, then," Cho said, shaking her head. "I won't live at your expense."  
  
"It wouldn't be any trouble at all. I'm quite old, and I honestly believe that I haven't much time left on earth anyway. My list of accomplishments hardly needs to be longer than it already is."  
  
"You know better than that, Professor," Harry said. "You can't expect either of us to agree to that."  
  
"Frankly," the old wizard smiled, "I didn't expect you to agree. But I had to be sure. The Exchange has pushed all too many desperate souls into the embrace of the Dark Arts. That leaves only Transmigration."  
  
"What's that, then?"  
  
"When your souls are born into the bodies of others."  
  
"But that sounds a bit like, well, being a vampire," Cho said.  
  
"Believe me when I say there are a great many bodies walking about these days with no souls at all, and not all of them are Muggles. The odds are actually rather good that we can find two young people, of about your age and circumstances. Their bodies will become yours, and will enable your wish to be granted.  
  
"You understand," Dumbledore warned them, "that things must be greatly different at first. For a time, you will forget all about Hogwarts and the entire wizarding world. You will live Muggle lives, remembering nothing of us and our world, but your memories will return, at the proper moment. For now, you're asking the universe to recreate itself, and, while no wizard can rewrite the past, sometimes the best we can hope for is a little fine tuning of the future." Harry and Cho nodded. "Take each other's hand."  
  
They both wordlessly asked the same question: if Cho was a ghost--  
  
"Take each other's hand," Dumbledore repeated.  
  
His head swimming with hope and fear, Harry reached out toward Cho...and, for the first time since that awful August night, skin touched skin.  
  
Harry and Cho stared into each other's eyes, barely hearing Dumbledore intone the word: "NOW!"  
  
* * *  
  
On a certain day, 8:00 a.m.  
  
Harry Potter cursed himself. What was he thinking, signing up for an 8 a.m. lecture course? Of course it wasn't really his fault, he reflected; it was a required core course for freshmen at the University, and there was no choice. Stupid Uni regulations...  
  
He threw himself down into a seat near the door, at the end of a bench of students attending (whether they chose to or not) the History of Modern Capitalism, taught by a Professor Snape, who at this moment was taking the roll:  
  
"Barstow"  
  
"Here, sir"  
  
"Benton"  
  
"Present"  
  
"Chang"  
  
"Present, sir"  
  
This last voice came from the student sitting next to him. He turned to her, and was pleased to see a very pretty Chinese girl, whose long, straight, very black hair hung halfway down her back.  
  
"Hi," he whispered.  
  
"Hi yourself," she whispered back.  
  
"You don't really want to be here, do you?"  
  
"You taking a survey, then?"  
  
"I just can't think why we're putting ourselves through this."  
  
"What, don't you think this is fun and exciting?"  
  
"SECOND CALL FOR HARRY POTTER!"  
  
"Sorry, sir. Here, sir."  
  
"Mister Potter," the professor broke off the roll call, "you may well find that, as the class progresses, we will be touching on a history that is not only vital in the formation of the modern world, but is as full of drama as anything on the television. You may find it so, that is, if you stop chatting up the other students. Purbridge."  
  
"Here, sir."  
  
xxx  
  
9:00 a.m.  
  
"Where did they find HIM?" Cho laughed as they fled the lecture hall.  
  
"London School of Economics," Harry answered. After a slight pause: "Out back, under a rock."  
  
Cho laughed again. Harry's jokes didn't always go over well-they were his way of coping in a world where he was on the short side, and where people thought his black-rimmed glasses told them more about him than did his vivid green eyes. But Cho was almost his height, and seemed to enjoy his company. He decided to take a chance.  
  
"Say, er, what's the rest of your day like? I mean, if you're not busy for lunch."  
  
"Booked solid, I'm afraid, Harry. This is a bad day; nothing but classes." She saw his crestfallen features, however, and had an idea. "But, how about dinner? I'm sharing a flat with some friends, but they'll be gone tonight, and I hate cooking for one."  
  
"Yeah! I mean, that'll be great."  
  
"It's not too far from here, but you'll walk right by it if you're not looking for it. I'll draw you a map." She tore the last page out of her notebook and started drawing.  
  
Harry was stunned by his good luck: pretty, friendly, and willing to cook. This can't be real. "Er, Cho?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"If you don't mind my asking, why me? I mean, we only just met an hour ago."  
  
"And yet it feels like we've known each other for years, right?" Harry stopped, realizing she was right. "You feel it too, then. Besides," she smiled, handing Harry the map, "I'm a pushover for green eyes."  
  
"Should I bring anything?"  
  
"A good red wine would be nice."  
  
"Is there such a thing as a cheap good red wine? I don't have much money at the moment."  
  
"That's all right, then. Just bring yourself.and those eyes."  
  
7:15 p.m.  
  
"Engineering? What made you choose that?"  
  
"I dunno, really. It just seemed like a practical sort of major, and my aunt and uncle are always on me to do something really useful with my life."  
  
"Well, what do your parents say?"  
  
"They're . they're dead."  
  
"I'm sorry, Harry. I shouldn't have said anything."  
  
"No, it's all right; you couldn't have known. We were all in a car crash; I was a year old at the time. They were killed, and I guess I was thrown clear. All I had to show for it was a scar on my forehead, but that's faded away."  
  
"Have they treated you well, your aunt and uncle?"  
  
"Well enough, I guess. And I get on with their son Dudley. But for some reason I always feel like an outsider with them."  
  
9:25 p.m.  
  
"I've never been in anything exciting or unusual. My parents, though; they came over from China just before I was born. Apparently, they had a rough time of it. They don't like to talk about it, though."  
  
"What do they do?"  
  
"Import-export. They seem to do pretty well."  
  
"So does my uncle, I guess. I never really thought about it."  
  
"What do you think about?"  
  
"Right at this moment? You."  
  
"You're a smooth one, you are."  
  
"No, I'm not. I mean, I don't usually get on this well with girls, no matter what I say."  
  
"So you think this is another one of those 'we must have known each other in a previous life' moments."  
  
"That's one way to explain it." There was a long and awkward pause. "Well, I guess I'd better go, unless you want to ask me something else." Please, Harry thought, ask me something else.  
  
"Well, I've been wondering what else you usually don't do with the other girls."  
  
12:17 a.m.  
  
"Harry Potter, you are a rotten liar! You must have done it before!"  
  
"No! Never!"  
  
"Well, I've only done this twice before, but I never felt this-"  
  
"You were saying?"  
  
"Nope. Shan't tell you."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Don't want you walking around all day with a bloody great."  
  
"Naughty!"  
  
"ego! Now who's being naughty?"  
  
"Cho, this is.well, it's crazy! I mean, I met you less than a day ago, and now here we are, and the one thing I want to do is jump out of this bed, throw open that window, stick my head out and yell, 'I love Cho Chang and I don't care who knows it!'"  
  
"Do it, Harry! Yell whatever you like, and add a message from me."  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"Well, you can say that Cho Chang has also fallen in love with Harry Potter."  
  
"You're joking!"  
  
"You're right; it IS crazy, but I mean it!"  
  
"Well, that's worth a shout or two. How do I open this.WHA!"  
  
"Harry?!"  
  
"I'm all right; just startled. But there's a bloody great owl outside your window!"  
  
"There is not!"  
  
"It's true! He was just sitting there, looking at me."  
  
"Then save the shouting out the window part until later. Come back here."  
  
So two of the most important people in the wizarding world, the two best Seekers ever to chase a Snitch at Hogwarts-and those responsible for the final and utter defeat of the Dark Lord-met again in the Muggle world, and fell in love again. They were as happy together there as they were at Hogwarts, but there was always a nagging sense that something was missing.  
  
Cho took medical classes and became a pharmacist, but found it rather unsatisfying. She hardly used all the knowledge she accumulated in school, dismissing her job as "counting someone else's pills". And at times, she found herself in the broom and mop section of the local market, just standing there, trying to remember something important.  
  
As for Harry Potter, one of the best Seekers Hogwarts ever knew was still flying, after a fashion. He got a degree in engineering and, despite his poor eyesight, became one of the youngest pilots ever to qualify as an international pilot for British Airways. Yet, like his wife, he couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't enough. He once told Cho that he could always tell when the job started getting to him, when he needed some time off: "when I start thinking about rolling down the window and letting a five hundred mile per hour breeze into the cockpit."  
  
They didn't know what was wrong-only that something was missing. But that all changed the day that a long-ago wish was granted. On, of all days, one July thirty-first: Harry's birthday.  
  
"Just about done now, missus."  
  
"Hang in there, Cho."  
  
"Easy for you to say." The rest of her words were lost to a sustained groan as-  
  
"And there's the shoulders! Worst is over now, missus."  
  
The rest of the baby gushed out, almost uncontrollably. "And here's your baby," the Jamaican nurse said; "a beautiful little girl."  
  
As soon as the baby was born, Cho felt a sense of loss-she'd gotten so used to carrying this life inside her for the past few months, that at first she didn't know how she'd spend the rest of her life feeling so.empty. But the second she saw her daughter, she knew: I haven't lost a thing. Oh, I'll lose her someday, when she goes off to college, and gets married, but for now we're two lives that are one life. Like Harry and me.  
  
"Do you have a name for her?" the nurse asked.  
  
"We don't know yet," Harry smiled. " Could you dim these lights, please?"  
  
"Well, yes, but."  
  
"It's all right," Cho smiled. "We need to see the color of her eyes. If it's too bright in here, she won't open them."  
  
The nurse dialed down the lights in the delivery room. After a minute, the newborn opened her eyes.  
  
"Is that what mine look like from your side?" Harry asked, awestruck.  
  
"Exactly the same."  
  
"Then we know her name."  
  
Jade Chang Potter seemed to be reaching for something, her vivid green eyes, set in a tiny replica of her mother's face, searching the room. Harry traced a finger across her face, and the moment he touched her lips she began sucking on his fingertip.  
  
"Look at that, then! She's not shy. Give her the breast, missus."  
  
Cho slid the gown off one shoulder, exposing a dark, swollen nipple. She squeezed the breast to start the flow, then brought the baby's mouth to it. The baby immediately started drawing milk.  
  
"Oh, she knows what she wants. She's a smart one, missus. You already have her name down for Eton?"  
  
Cho almost didn't hear the nurse, gazing in joyful fascination at the life she and Harry had created. But she looked at the nurse, and said "No." then stopped. An odd, almost giddy faraway look came to her eyes, as if she had awakened from a beautiful dream into an even more wonderful dawn. She looked at Harry, whose brilliant green eyes carried the same look. As they had so many times since they met, they said the same word at the same time, but this was a word that they didn't realize until then that they knew:  
  
"Hogwarts"  
  
xxx  
  
Harry and Cho waited until the nurse took Cho back to her room. Then they talked. They talked well into the night, stopping whenever someone came into the room. Some (another word they didn't remember until that day) Muggle or other. They knew that they had to quit their jobs, draw out their resources, and effectively vanish from the world.  
  
No sooner had they left the hospital the next day than they waved down a taxicab. It took them to a grimy, neutral looking pub sandwiched on a sidestreet between a bookstore and a music store. Most people wouldn't even know it was there.  
  
They stood on the sidewalk for a minute. "Nervous?" Harry asked.  
  
Cho nodded. "We don't know how much things have changed."  
  
"Then let's find out." And they entered the Leaky Cauldron.  
  
They needn't have worried. It seemed completely unchanged from when Harry first entered it so many years before. He even recognized one of the pub's long-standing customers, Doris Crockford, in her usual place by the hearth.  
  
Harry stepped up to her. "Been a long time, Doris."  
  
Doris looked up, tried to remember where she'd seen the face, then with a "Good heavens!!" almost fell out of her chair. "Tom! Tom!" she called to the owner. "Look who this is!"  
  
Tim, the bald and withered old bartender, likewise first looked, then stared. "Glory be," he finally said, "but I didn't think I'd ever see it. Welcome back, Mister Potter."  
  
"Mister and missus. You remember Cho Chang, I hope?"  
  
"I'm not likely to forget; her folks still have the shop at the other end of the Alley. Congratulations to the both of ye. And how old is this little darling?"  
  
"Just born yesterday."  
  
"Well, then, you don't need to be keepin' her in a stuffy old place like this. Come by and see us when ye have the time. We want to hear all about ye."  
  
As small as the pub was, it took a very long time for them to get through the crowd that seemed to come out of nowhere for congratulations and kisses, hugs and handshakes, and a great deal of cooing at the baby. Finally, they got to the backyard wall by the dustbins. The wall was already open onto Diagon Alley.  
  
There were very few people about; but then, it was the very hottest part of August. They did see someone at the end of the lane: A little old Chinese lady, wearing a sweater in spite of the heat, sweeping the pavement. They got within six feet of her and she still hadn't noticed them.  
  
Cho spoke, hesitantly: "Gran?"  
  
Granny Li turned and looked. Her eyes went as wide as saucers. She dropped her broom, ran into the shop, turned right around, ran back out, grabbed her broom and ran back in. She could be heard shouting something in Chinese.  
  
"Well?" Harry asked.  
  
Even though she was smiling, Cho's eyes started to fill with tears. "She's saying, 'They've come back; they've come home.'"  
  
Suddenly Granny Li was back at the door. "Why you wait there? In, in!" Cho carried Jade in, followed by Harry. As he passed Granny Li, she swatted him on the arse with her broom. "Good boy," she said as he looked at her; then she burst out cackling like a hag.  
  
They spent that month in Diagon Alley both getting used to caring for the baby and getting used again to the wizarding world. Sometimes, the baby seemed to be the harder job, even though Jade had five grownups to dote on her. Cho heard lecture after endless lecture from her mother about how to care for a baby, but they all pitched in on feeding and bathing and diapering, or just watching this lovely little witch get introduced to the world.  
  
There was lots else to do, of course. Their second night back, Harry and Cho were treated to a ten-course Chinese banquet by her family, to celebrate their marriage and the birth of the baby. The very next night, there was another ten-course Chinese banquet-this one hosted by the neighbouring Tan family. They didn't want to appear less than hospitable, and they also wanted to show that there were no hard feelings that Cho's engagement to their son hadn't been honoured.  
  
"They couldn't very well say anything once I died, could they?" Cho whispered to Harry during one of several "no hard feelings" speeches given between courses by Mister Tan.  
  
The real surprises came when they ventured into Diagon Alley. The first week they were back, they went to Gringotts to see about starting a joint account. When Harry mentioned his name, the goblin behind the desk gave him a particularly intense stare. After a minute, he jumped down from his stool, walked into the back offices, then walked back out with a letter.  
  
"To be called for," he said, in an almost surly voice, as he handed the letter to Harry:  
  
"Dear Harry:  
  
First things first. DAMN YOU, YOU STUPID SOD! WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TELL US YOU WERE GOING TO FIGHT YOU-KNOW-WHO?! YOU COULD HAVE TRUSTED US; WE COULD HAVE HELPED, AND YOU NEVER GAVE US A CHANCE!!  
  
Having said that-  
  
I don't know what was the bigger surprise: Sirius showing up at Hogwarts as a free man, or his saying that you were giving your things away. It was no surprise that you'd near killed yourself in the fight, but then he says that you and Cho will be going off somewhere, to get married and have kids and all. Well, if anyone's earned the right to it, you have.  
  
But if you think I'm going to go through your money like Cousin Dudley going through a cake, you'd better think again. If I did that, it would be like saying, 'That's it, I know he's never coming back.' And I know better than to think any such thing while you're around.  
  
I don't know when you'll get this, so I don't know where I'll be. Hermy wants to go to Uni (of course!) but she can't make up her mind between U of Avalon or Old Heidelberg. As if I'd follow her to the Continent for a few years! (Well, maybe.)  
  
Anyway, if you're reading this, you'll know to check in at the Burrow to find out where we are. We'll probably get an owl one day when we least expect it, and then we can get together again.  
  
Once your classmate and always your friend,  
  
Ron  
  
PS: Dumbledore told us what happened to Draco. Who'd have thought the little git had it in him?  
  
PPS: I'm not a total idjit; I'm DEFINITELY keeping your Firebolt!-until you ask for it back."  
  
After that, the letter continued in another hand:  
  
"Dear Harry and Cho,  
  
I assume that, whenever you're reading this and whatever happened, you two are together. That's the way I'll always remember you, if we shouldn't meet again. But of course we will!  
  
Ron wouldn't tell you, but things have gotten better for his family financially. With Fudge out as Minister of Magic, and Diggory as Interim Minister, Mr. Weasley's finally gotten the promotion and rise in salary he's deserved for so long.  
  
Ron seems to think that I can't choose between universities. The fact is, Heidelberg is doing some of the best research in Muggle Studies genealogy. I would go there in a heartbeat, but I know Ron wouldn't come with me, and it's gotten to the place where I can't bear to be away from him for too long. (He feels the same, even though he'll never admit it.) I'm sure you understand. Anyway, I understand that Avalon has a lovely campus, and the Welsh Quidditch teams are perfectly fine (even if they aren't the Cannons).  
  
Please write as soon as you can; I know we'll have so much to catch up on!  
  
Hermione  
  
PS: Thanks for the cloak. I'll take your advice as best I can, with a little help from my teacher."  
  
Harry looked from the letter to the goblin, who probably wouldn't have waited a second longer. "Your key," he said, practically fuming at being made to wait.  
  
"Key? To my old vault, you mean?"  
  
"If your name is Harry Potter, it is."  
  
"How, erm, how much."  
  
"An accounting," the goblin said, pulling some papers out of his pocket and handing a slip to Harry.  
  
Harry looked at the number, then stared at it. "Cho, does this mean what I think it means?"  
  
Cho likewise looked, then stared, at the paper. "Well, among other things, it means you could pay the salary of a professional Quidditch team for a year."  
  
"Wow," Harry said, trying not to raise his voice. He asked the goblin, "Can we put this account in both our names? And our daughter's, just in case?"  
  
You would have thought he had asked the goblin to run to Edinburgh and back. "Follow me," he sighed, as he led them to a desk.  
  
By the second week of August, Hogwarts supplies were in and students and parents began to fill the street. One time Harry and Cho were looking in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies when they heard two boys talking:  
  
"I was upside-down, I tell you!"  
  
"Pull the other one!"  
  
"I swear! The Snitch was dive-bombing me! I had to back up to keep it from breaking every bone in my hand. I caught that one flying backwards!"  
  
"Yeah, you and Harry Potter. Let's get some ice cream."  
  
It was all Harry could do not to laugh out loud. As he looked away, he caught sight of a figure standing in the doorway to his shop: Mister Ollivander. Harry suddenly remembered that he'd lost his wand in the fight with Voldemort, and Cho's wand had been damaged in the bomb blast, and was burned when her body was burned.  
  
As soon as they started walking to the store, Mr. Ollivander ducked back inside, and was halfway up a ladder when they entered. "People seek replacement wands under the strangest circumstances," he was saying, apparently to himself, "but I've surely never come across something like this before. No matter; I think we have just the thing here." He spoke even as he climbed down the ladder.  
  
"Ladies first. Your first wand was willow, as I recall, unicorn hair, eleven inches. All well and good for a schoolgirl, but of course that was another time. You might try this; part of a shipment that arrived last week."  
  
One wand caught Cho's eye immediately; a wand made of bamboo. No sooner did she pick it up than a shower of sparks flew out the end, cascading to the floor.  
  
"Excellent, excellent. Nine inches of bamboo, heartstring from a Chinese Fireball. Not too many British wizards like this model, but it seems to suit you just fine.  
  
"Now for Mister Potter." Harry started to sweat, remembering that it took forever for Mister Ollivander to find his first wand. "But we all learn from experience, don't we? If you'd be so kind."  
  
From a tray with three wands on it, Harry selected one and picked it up. Large spheres of light-one gold, one silver-grew at the end of the wand, then broke away and floated through the shoppe, bathing everything in a peaceful glow.  
  
"Wonderful!" Ollivander exclaimed. "This one was waiting for you, Mister Potter. Formerly nine inches of holly, if I remember correctly, and now twelve inches of rowan wood, with a phoenix feather. Not the same phoenix as your last wand, but of course you're hardly the same as you were."  
  
"How does it feel?" Cho asked.  
  
"Like we're finally back home," Harry smiled.  
  
With a week to go before Hogwarts classes started again, Harry and Cho had gone to Madam Malkin's. They just wanted some robes for everyday; they were beginning to feel conspicuous in their Muggle attire. As they left Malkin's they heard the voice: "Well, I knew this day would come, but it's still a pleasant surprise."  
  
There on the pavement stood Minerva McGonagall, looking unchanged from the last time they had seen her.  
  
They went to the Leaky Cauldron for refreshments and to catch up on what had changed.  
  
"The main change at Hogwarts seems to be my job description," McGonagall said. "I am now Acting Headmistress, after the departure of Albus Dumbledore."  
  
"That's such a shame," Cho said. "How did it happen?"  
  
"You misunderstand. He didn't die; he departed. We found a note on the Head Table one morning, saying that there was a rumour he needed to verify, and to keep things running along until he got back." A strange look came over McGonagall's face. "That was almost two years ago."  
  
"Surely he's all right, isn't he?"  
  
"Harry, we haven't heard a word from him-not directly, at any rate. There have been sightings in Latvia, rumors that he was in Mongolia--always many weeks after the fact. The truth is that nobody really knows."  
  
"I'd love to spend a day or two back at Hogwarts, just to look about," Cho sighed. "But we'd probably disrupt things."  
  
"Personally," McGonagall smiled, "I can't think of a nicer disruption. When I get back, I'll send an owl along with two tickets. It'll be grand having you back."  
  
So it was that Jade Chang Potter got her first look at Hogwarts-and the Hogwarts Express-when she was barely one month old. The train trip was as long as ever but interesting, especially when the old witch pushed the cart up to their compartment. Harry bought a pack of Chocolate Frogs for old time's sake.  
  
He looked at the cards, and started to laugh. He could hardly speak as he passed the cards to Cho.  
  
She got the joke immediately and started laughing along with Harry. They were laughing at two of the wizard cards-one which said that Cho Chang was killed in a bomb blast, the other which said that Harry Potter died while battling Lord Voldemort. These would be collector's items.  
  
xxx  
  
They stood at the door of the Great Hall, Harry craning his neck to see the Head Table.  
  
"Funny, I can't see him. You'd think he'd be hard to miss."  
  
"He isn't," Cho chuckled; "you're just looking at the wrong table." She pointed down the hall, to the far end of the Gryffindor table.  
  
Harry was off like a shot, leaving Cho to catch up. He grabbed onto the very large student in very large black robes.  
  
"HAGRID?"  
  
Hagrid turned his squinty black eyes on Harry, trying to place him at first, then he took both of Harry's hands in his, nearly crushing them. "It's you! It really is you an' all!"  
  
Cho caught up. "It's been a long time, Hagrid. This doesn't mean you're not on the faculty?"  
  
"Truth is, I consider this a step up." He turned to the other Gryffindors around him, who were watching in amusement. "Gotta say hello to me old mates; you unnerstan'." He walked them to a corner of the Great Hall.  
  
"What kind of step up?"  
  
"Well, when my name was cleared and they made me a teacher here, I thought I'd gone as high as I ever could in life. I mean, considerin' I'd never finished here in the first place. But I been spendin' summers with Olympe Maxim; I 'spects yeh remember her."  
  
They nodded. Cho asked, "Is she still Headmistress at Beauxbatons?"  
  
"Yeh, an' things got a little sticky between us awhile back. She says she can' be goin' anywhere wi' me 'cause I'm jus' a gamekeeper. Well, we had some right words after that, an' finally she says she din't mean anythin' insultin', but she knows I have the brains ter do better in life. So I talks it over wi' Professor Dumbledore an', well, here I am. An' I mean to graduate this time 'round, get me wand back an' all."  
  
"That's great, Hagrid! We'll be cheering for you."  
  
"Yeh, well, I'm still worried about the OWLs. Prob'ly have teh study day an' night fer 'em."  
  
"You can do it," Cho smiled.  
  
Hagrid looked at Cho, and seemed torn about something-wanting to ask a question, but also wanting not to ask.  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
"Well, Harry, I don' think I should say, but . well . it's about yer ."  
  
Cho understood. "Hold out your hands."  
  
As Hagrid did so, Cho rested the baby on his palms. There was almost as much room as in her crib. "Her name's Jade."  
  
"Ooh, lookit her, so tiny an' all." Hagrid brought his face closer to Jade, who seemed to find his beard interesting, passing her hands through it a few times.  
  
"But you're not Groundkeeper any more?"  
  
"Wha? No, I din't say that. Madam Sprout's took over some o' my duties, just as her assistant has taken over some o' hers."  
  
"Assistant?"  
  
Hagrid looked at the Head Table. There, seated next to Sprout, was an older, handsomer, only a little less clumsy Neville Longbottom. Right now he was trying to round up Brussels sprouts which he had spilled all over the table, much to Snape's consternation.  
  
Hagrid was at a loss for what to do with Jade, so Cho picked her up again. "We'll see you later," Harry said, shaking Hagrid's hand.  
  
"I'll be in my cabin. I'm Gryffindor in name, but I never was used ter sleepin' in the castle. I needs teh hear the wind, the crickets, the odd werewolf."  
  
They left Hagrid to go back to his mates. "By the way, where will we be staying?" Harry asked.  
  
"It may be too late to get a room in Hogsmeade. Let's ask McGonagall."  
  
It was too late. Sirius offered his room-"No problem; I can kip with my motorcycle"-until McGonagall settled it. "You two can stay in Dumbledore's rooms. They're still the best we have, and he'd never forgive me if I didn't let you two stay there."  
  
It was, to put it mildly, an interesting night's sleep.  
  
They were up at dawn. As Cho fed Jade, Harry discovered that Dumbledore's private bath could easily hold them all, so the three of them spent an hour soaking and splashing and thoroughly enjoying themselves. Afterwards, while Jade happily lay in a pool of sunshine that came through the window, Cho and Harry slowly and gently made love on Dumbledore's bed-for the first time since Jade was born.  
  
Breakfast was almost over when they entered the Great Hall; most of the students had gone to classes.  
  
"Hungry?" Harry asked.  
  
"For more than just food," Cho smiled. "This morning-it felt like we were doing it for the first time."  
  
"You want to work up an appetite, then? Try something else for the first time in too long?"  
  
"I know just what you mean. Let's take a look."  
  
So they went to the Quidditch Stadium. Sure enough, there they found Madam Hooch, walking along the sidelines, inspecting the stands. They didn't have to say a word; she sensed they were there; turned and started briskly toward them-of course, she seemed to do everything briskly. "I heard the rumours," she beamed, "and I wondered when you two were going to show up."  
  
"We'd have come here sooner if we'd arrived in daylight," Cho replied. "And we really need to talk, but first there's a bit of unfinished business."  
  
"You see," Harry continued the thought, "Cho and I have only played two matches against each other, and we each won one. When the Death Eaters attacked Hogsmeade, we were trying to break the tie amongst ourselves."  
  
"Say no more." Madam Hooch led them to a storage shed, where she pulled out two brooms. "You used to be pretty unevenly matched, as I recall; this should correct that." She handed each a Nimbus Two Thousand and One.  
  
"These can't be school brooms, can they?"  
  
"Slytherin House donated all their brooms when . when they heard about Draco Malfoy. A gesture, if you ask me. Nimbus had just announced the 2050 model. That was before the Ministry got into it, of course. They still haven't said the brooms will be approved for sale to the public; too much power, not enough control. An accident waiting to happen, if you ask me.  
  
"But listen to me going on, then." She reached into a chest and got a Snitch. "If you don't mind my watching."  
  
"Jade Chang Potter."  
  
"Hullo, Miss Jade Chang Potter," Madam Hooch said, handing Harry the Snitch as she took the baby from Cho. "I'm going to teach you to fly in a few years time. Not that you'll need to learn much from me; your mummy and daddy were two of the best Seekers I ever saw, and I've seen them all. Saw the great Eunice Murray herself back in 'thirty-eight; it was she who got your Auntie Hooch into Quidditch. I was in the stands for seven straight days in 'fifty-three watching Glynnis Griffiths and the Holyhead Harpies. And I just know you are going to outshine them all."  
  
Since Jade seemed to be in very good hands, they walked out to the center of the stadium, hand in hand.  
  
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Cho asked.  
  
"You're not backing down, are you?"  
  
"That did it. I was prepared to go easy on you, but that's off now."  
  
"Oh, I've already won."  
  
"And how do you figure that?"  
  
Harry smiled and squeezed Cho's hand. "Because I have you, and Jade, and a few Galleons in the bank, and a half-decent broom. What else will I ever need?"  
  
They kissed deeply, then mounted their brooms. Harry threw the Snitch straight up as hard as he could.  
  
"Ready, steady, go!"  
  
Harry and Cho kicked off the ground and were soaring through the sky over the stadium-back on brooms, back chasing the Snitch, back where they belonged.  
  
THE END 


End file.
